Friday, May 18, 2012

Canadian SRI Funds Performing Strongly: Report


A research brief from the Social Investment Organization finds that the perception held by many advisors that SRI funds underperform the market doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

“Using the most recent performance numbers provided by Fundata, a portrait is emerging of a strongly performing industry with outperforming funds in every major fund category,” says SIO associate director Ian Bragg.

For example, in the Canadian Equity fund class, the average of SRI funds outperformed the average of all Canadian equity funds on a one, three five and ten-year basis.

In the Canadian fixed income category, the SRI funds average outperformed the industry average on a one, three and five-year basis and was almost identical on a ten-year basis.

The report notes that the long-term performance of SRI funds in some categories, such as Canadian equity balanced and global equity, must be cautiously interpreted because the majority of these funds have not been running long enough for five and ten year results.

“It will take some time for the long-term performance of the SRI industry to reveal itself because of the relatively short-term track record of most funds, but early results are encouraging.”

“Our study shows that there are more than enough leading SRI funds to choose from with strongly performing funds in every major fund category.”

The research brief is available here.

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