How do we screen out companies we want to avoid in a biblically responsible investment portfolio?
Biblically responsible investment portfolios are screened using a service we subscribe to. This service provides us with reports on every single publically traded company.
BRI Portfolios present quite a challenge in that they require each and every stock consideration to be screened. The screening process is in-depth and provides us with a pretty great snapshot of the qualities of each business. In the case of our faith-based investment models, we will start with a list of stocks such as the Rusell 3000, which is comprised of more than 2,700+ stocks. Once we know the total pool of stocks we are working with, we need to have each and every single company screened for conflicts with our biblical worldview. We can then use the service we partner with to put together a report that will narrow down the list of stocks we have to work with. Once this new list is complete, we can begin trading them based on the selected investment strategy for the corresponding portfolio.
What do we screen out?
We screen out any company that violates our biblical worldview. This includes any company that buys, sells, distributes, produces, advertises, or donates to anything that contributes to:
- Lifestyle Issues
- Abortion
- Alcohol
- Tobacco
- Gambling
- Entertainment
- Pornography
- Human Rights Issues
How often do we re-screen the companies?
New reports are made on each company on an annual basis. New violations may not show up on the reports until the year finishes out. However, we disqualify a stock as soon as we learn about any violation. When a stock becomes disqualified, we seek to remove them from our BRI portfolios as soon as we can. A good example of this is Crocs. In 2022 they launched a campaign that was in conflict with our biblical worldview. Because of this, even though our reports didn’t reflect this violation just yet, we removed them from our pool of eligible stocks.