Chart of the Week: JUST 100 Companies Continue to Exemplify Strong Leadership While Achieving Alpha

Our chart this week looks at the performance of our two active indexes – the JUST 100 (JUONE) and the JUST U.S. Large Cap Diversified (JULCD) – over the trailing year relative to the Russell 1000 Index.

The JUONE Index, recently hitting its two-year anniversary since inception on March 22, 2019, was constructed to track JUST Capital’s 100 highest-ranked Russell 1000 companies on an equal-weighted basis and includes the best-performing companies in our annual Rankings of America’s Most JUST Companies. Looking at the performance of the JUST 100, we see significant alpha relative to the average Russell 1000 company we rank, with JUST 100 companies returning 69.3% over the trailing -year and the average Russell 1000 company at 60.6% as of 3/31/2021. Our broad-based JULCD Index has slightly underperformed the Russell 1000, returning 58.2% over the trailing year.

Investors continue to see value in the JUST methodology, as the Morningstar bronze-medalist JUST ETF – which tracks the broad-market JULCD Index – continues to scale and recently crossed $225 million in assets under management, a 20% increase in assets since year-end. While we have a strong partnership with Goldman Sachs with the JUST ETF, JUST Capital is actively seeking a dedicated asset management partner interested in launching an investment product around the JUST 100 Index.

Highlighting unique attributes of the JUST 100 further:

• As we wrap up “Earth Month,” our colleagues published an article last week about the “10 Companies Leading On Environmental Impact,” eight of which fall into the JUST 100.
• Additionally, we recently looked at the top five companies for women in the workplace finding that all five companies are part of the JUST 100.
• Compared to lower-ranked Russell 1000 peers, JUST 100 companies on average pay 18% more to their median workers, are 6x more likely to have set diversity targets, and are 4.7x more likely to have conducted a gender and/or ethnicity pay equity analysis.

The JUST 100, as we see above, is a unique portfolio of companies driving stakeholder capitalism forward, going above and beyond to advocate for the environment, their workforce diversity, and better pay for their workers. Given the leadership, performance, and impact of JUST 100 companies, it is clear that a JUST 100 thematic investment product fits a unique need in the market as our methodology and Rankings reflect the priorities of the American public.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to our Investor Products team if you are interested in speaking further about the JUST 100 Index.

If you are interested in supporting our mission, we are happy to discuss data needs, index licensing, and other ways we can partner. Please reach out to our Director of Business Development, Charlie Mahoney, at cmahoney@justcapital.com to discuss how we can create a more JUST economy together.