iShares ESG Optimized MSCI USA ETF

SUSA

Market cap $4.04B

US Vegan Climate ETF is a passively managed vehicle offering exposure to "an animal-friendly and climate-conscious portfolio." With 260 equities in the portfolio, VEGN has around 65% of the net assets deployed to IT, sporting a 24.1% weighted average forward revenue growth rate. VEGN has beaten SUSA, ESGU, and IVV since September 2019, though delivering a deep maximum drawdown and high downside capture ratio.

SUSA is an ESG-focused fund tracking the performance of U.S. large- and mid-cap stocks. Its expense ratio is 0.25% and the fund has $3.87 billion in assets under management. Index constraints limit each security's weight to 5%, meaning mega-cap growth stocks like Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia have reduced weightings. The Index also removes companies involved in controversial business activities like civilian firearms, nuclear power, gambling, and fossil fuel extraction, among others.

The 30-year fixed-rate average fell since last week, marking the tenth weekly decline in the last 12.

To close out the year, I thought it would be interesting to see which thematic categories experienced the most inflows in 2023, demonstrating proverbially “where the puck was going.” This data, sourced from Bloomberg and VettaFi's internal data, is interesting because it does not necessarily align with performance.