Investor Return

Can JUSTness be used to identify performance leaders within negative earning companies? According to our recent analysis, among the negative earners in the Russell 1000, JUST leaders have outperformed laggards by almost 40% since January 2020.

From Jan 2018 to September 2023, leading companies have outperformed their lower-ranked peers by 56.5%, with the Workers stakeholder delivering the strongest performance in Q3.

From Jan 2018 to June 2023, leading companies have outperformed the laggards by 52.13% as measured by JUST Overall Score, while all five stakeholders we track delivered negative performance in Q2 2023.

The JUST Overall Weighted Score has outperformed the Russell 1000 by 50.67% from Jan 2018 to March 2023, though all five stakeholders we track delivered negative performance in Q1 2023, primarily driven by the Financials sector.

Concepts feature companies in the top 20% of our Rankings and demonstrate that investors need not sacrifice returns to support companies doing right by all their stakeholders.

In JUST Capital’s Quarterly Review of Stakeholder Performance – Q3 2022, we found that companies with strong Workers scores outperformed peers in a challenging environment.

Even in challenging economic headwinds, companies performing well in JUST’s Rankings are demonstrating that following through on values does not mean sacrificing returns.

The pressures inflation heaps on business does not mean stakeholder value creation needs to take a back seat. On the contrary, it can be a time for just companies to shine.

We broke down market performance for each of the companies in our Rankings, and found that the “most just” outperformed those at the bottom of the list generally and across four of five stakeholders we measure.

How can corporations investing locally advance racial equity in the communities they impact? Join us for a deep look at Newark Venture Partners (NVP), which invests in high-growth startups and generates jobs and opportunities for residents in Newark, New Jersey.

We recently marked the 3rd anniversary of Goldman Sachs’ JUST ETF, which tracks the JULCD Index based on our annual Rankings of the Russell 1000.

This week, Emmanuel Faber, one of the world’s foremost proponents of stakeholder capitalism, lost his job as CEO and chairman of Danone. The easy reaction would be to see this as a blow for proponents of the stakeholder cause. That would be a mistake.

More investors are recognizing that investing can serve a dual purpose – to both reach financial goals and to perpetuate core values by supporting companies doing right by all shareholders.

Yesterday, acting SEC Chair Allison Herren Lee – who at the beginning of the week had said at a conference that voluntary ESG disclosure wasn’t cutting it – announced the creation of a Climate and ESG Task Force in the Enforcement division

investors are becoming sophisticated enough to tell the difference between greenwashing and value creation…and this Exxon case proves it.

Milton Friedman and his peers set America on the course of shareholder primacy. Business leaders and academics are considering what must be done for a stakeholder-driven alternative.

The DOL has stated that ESG funds are “vehicles for furthering social goals or policy objectives that are not in the financial interest of the plan.” We completely disagree – here’s why.

Last month, the Department of Labor (DOL) proposed a new investment duties rule that would essentially keep ESG funds out of retirement accounts. Everything I’ve seen throughout my career shows that such a move would hurt investors.

ESG investing proves critical in protecting the downside during the bear market.

JUST Capital’s index, the JULCD, has been beating the Russell 1000.

Today, State Street CEO Cyrus Taraporevala announced that they would be using their proxy voting power to ensure companies were identifying material ESG issues.

EPFR, Informa Financial Intelligence, released a staggering chart this week, showing that as wider equity markets have lost investment, ESG funds have only seen their investment levels increase.

What explains the market outperformance of JUST companies?

Joining forces with Bloomberg to convene business and investment leaders for a discussion around the state of capitalism today.