Investment firm launches 'faith-based' fund

Facebook. Apple. Alphabet. What do those big tech companies have in common, besides being high-growth stocks?

They're all included in a new exchange-traded investment fund (ETF) that uses the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Socially Responsible Investing Guidelines to pick companies. That means it avoids companies involved with abortion, contraception, pornography, human cloning and weapons of mass destruction.

The ETF is the first from Dallas-based Faith Investor Services and is being managed by Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors, a Connecticut firm.

"Dallas is business-friendly and there are many people of faith in greater Texas so it was a no-brainer," said Faith Investor Services CEO Michael Skillman.

More than 80% percent of people living in Dallas-Fort Worth, often called the "buckle of the Bible Belt," identify as religious, according to the Pew Research Center.

Buying a basket of stocks through ETFs is a nearly $9 trillion global industry. But not many follow a faith-based investment philosophy.

Faith Investor Services, which has four full-time employees, wanted to bring faith-based investing beyond institutions. This is its first ETF but it hopes to launch a second one — focused on broader Christian values — by the end of the year.

The fund charges a 0.75% annual fee. That's on the more expensive end considering that the median fee for ETFs is 0.49%, according to Morningstar data. This means the fund is in the 81st percentile. However, if open-end funds are added into the mix, then the fund's expense ratio is more attractive — in the 39th percentile.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) funds in the early 2000s sometimes required investors to give up a higher return on investment, but they've improved significantly, said Morningstar ESG analyst Alyssa Stankiewicz.

"I can't say every ESG fund is going to outperform the market, but it's not a clear tradeoff now, especially as choices increase," she said.

While Faith Investor Services is a new player, the Knights of Columbus has been around since the 1800s when the Catholic fraternal order was founded with a mission of charity. It has nine Catholic-oriented funds and well over 400 clients, said Anthony Minopoli, chief information officer of the Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors.