ETF shop that shorts Cramer has sights on anti-ESG

investmentnews.com:

An ETF shop known for shorting Jim Cramer’s and Cathie Wood’s stock picks is preparing to bet against a different category: ESG.

On Tuesday, Tuttle Capital filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch two products: the Inverse Socially Conscious and Self Defense Index ETFs. The former would seek to invest in mid- and large-cap companies the advisor deems politically conservative or neutral while shorting stocks that it claims are “deemed to be following ‘woke’ policies,” the prospectus states. The latter ETF would hold stocks of gunmakers or sellers, as well as those specializing in home security equipment.

“As a shareholder, I’m investing to make money,” CEO and CIO Matthew Tuttle said. Conversely, considering sustainability or social factors means “investing in companies based on some ESG standards and not based on all the stuff I was taught in business school — profitability and value.”

The fund filings come as a prominent player in the anti-ESG space, Strive Asset Management, crossed the $1 billion mark for assets under management, according to Bloomberg.

As Republican politicians have railed against the notion of ESG factors as investment considerations, small asset managers have brought more than two dozen anti-ESG funds to market over roughly a year.

So far, most of those products have been slow to attract money, although a total of nearly $537 million has flowed into such funds this year through August, according to data from Morningstar Direct. More than half of that went into just two ETFs: the Strive Emerging Markets Ex-China ETF, which pulled in over $149 million; and the Strive 500 ETF, which raked in $143.6 million, the data show. As of August, there was a total of about $2.5 billion in all