• enoriverbend 11:58 am on December 8, 2009

    I think that depends on how strongly you disagree with their actions, and on what grounds. I rarely agree 100% with each and every action of every company I own stock in. But it wouldn’t bother me unless I thought their actions were a serious ethical or moral breach.

  • coldgreyash 11:58 am on December 8, 2009

    Yes, but it’s a sound business practice if they are making you money, so you have to decide: Money or ethics.
    Eventually you’ll learn that money basically tops ethics most of the time.

  • Yarcofin 11:58 am on December 8, 2009

    The money is going to be made no matter what you do, and someone is going to make money. It might as well be you.

    Investing is investing. Leave ethics out of it. If you need to take advantage of alcoholics, smokers, war victims, and sweatshop labour to make a buck, so be it.

    If you feel guilty, you can always donate a % of your earnings to offset the gain you make. For example if you bought stock in Budweiser you could donate money to Alcoholics Anonymous.

    But personally I think that’s rather foolish.

  • PiggiePants 11:58 am on December 8, 2009

    ethically, yes it is. By investing in the company you are supporting the company financially, and helping it to continue to do whatever it is you disagree with. However, where money is concerned, people tend to find a way to deal with their ethical considerations.

    There are several mutual funds that are aware of such concerns, and provide options that are more socially conscious – if your conscience is bothering you about something, you should do some research into such funds.

  • Alan Kirkham 4:36 am on December 14, 2009

    There seems to be some underlying paradigm in this discussion that investing ethically is in some way an alternative to investing for profit. Actually my experience with hundreds of ethical clients is that ethical investment and profitable investment is one and the same thing.