@stephenmarklevi It's a valid point. In some cases divestment campaigns make the stocks cheaper for other people to scoop them up.
In other cases though (like fossil fuel divestment now), an increasingly broader personal and institutional investors are pulling their money out, including some Wall St type investors. So after certain tipping point, divestment is the right thing to do to avoid investment loss.
We don't know if gun stocks are there yet. Maybe not. But these efforts add up, and with more technology and design, we can make it easier to vote with their $.
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Why 30 days only? Gun stocks aside, this looks like one of the best fund screeners I’ve seen.
Hi @curiouspaul! Thank you for the compliment. Which part did you find useful? I’ve used it for my own fund selection too.
The 30-day expiration is intended to provide a sense of urgency to the participants, bring focused attention to the issue, and get clear insights.
We’ve seen (and I’ve personally run) online campaigns that eventually become deserted. By putting an expiration date, we can do a better job directing attention to the topic of gun stock divestment for the timeframe, and analyzing the participation to get actionable insights.
As an early stage fintech startup, we’re interested in exploring the topic of “truly personalized socially responsible investing.” An expiration date allows us to support and evaluate this particular offering in a focused manner, so that we can take the lessons and define our next steps.
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@keywonc Makes sense. I have firsthand experience too and agree campaigns are hard to maintain after the first wave of participants.
The part I found useful was that I could easily see all funds from one brand or a category, and narrow them down by things like expense ratios.
For instance, I was able to see all 12 Technology Sector funds(https://goodbyegunstocks.com/alt...), with expense below 0.5% in one place. I’ve never been able to browse a sea of funds like this.
@humidorange It’s a hodgepodge. The stack is built using Meteor (http://meteor.com), though we don’t really use many of its features. The front-end is built using React-Redux (https://github.com/reactjs/react...) and generally works well. The search is done using Elasticsearch (https://www.elastic.co/), and the data processing is done using a fairly crazy pipeline of python, nodejs, and some Meteor. Most of this was developed for our main service, Hello Money (https://hellomoney.co), so Goodbye Gun Stocks is mostly the front-end.
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@mshilman@humidorange Yowza. That sounds like quite a lot sitting behind a pretty simple service. Overengineered?
@notnononech@humidorange Haha, maybe. The top-level architecture works well, and aside from cleanup I wouldn’t do things too differently if I were to rewrite. I’ve got my eye on Apollo (http://www.apollostack.com/), also from the Meteor team, and might give that a try on the next iteration. :)
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Is this for US stocks only? Which stocks are gun-related? Good job!
@sanemavcil Yep, we’re currently able to screen US funds for US stocks. The gun-related stocks in the US are the following:
- Gun and ammunition makers: Olin, Ruger, Smith & Wesson, Vista Outdoor
- Gun and ammunition retail sellers: Big 5, Cabela’s, Dick’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse, Wal-mart.
"Appreneur" is a nice title by the way :) Let me know if you have any other questions.
@south_erner Ahh yes. I was actually surprised when I looked it up.
Leading the trend right now is fossil fuel divestment, where $3.4 trillions of assets have been pledged to divest. Divest/Invest pledge has ballooned 52x in 15 months. http://divestinvest.org/
In the 1970s, almost $350m of investments was withdrawn from South Africa via an international boycott against the Apartheid.
Super VC Ron Conway is currently involved in gun stock divestment via Unload Your 401K. In fact you can see his face in this promo video as well:
After the research, I am starting to believe aligning your ethical and financial gains will become the mainstream behavior.
I wrote a roundup of the divestment trend on Medium titled "The Faces of Divestment: Ron Conway, Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Gore, and Snoop Dogg" -- you might find this entertaining ;) https://medium.com/p/2b14200bd154
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Surprised to see Walmart on the list. Is that true?
@charles_baker We are fans of your work. Saw Unload Your 401K, and wanted to expand it beyond 401K. Kudos to you and your team, and thank you for your encouragement!
Vimeo
Hello Money, Goodbye Gun Stocks
Hello Money, Goodbye Gun Stocks
Hello Money, Goodbye Gun Stocks
The State Of JavaScript Survey
Hello Money, Goodbye Gun Stocks
The State Of JavaScript Survey
The State Of JavaScript Survey
Hello Money, Goodbye Gun Stocks
Bisou
Hello Money, Goodbye Gun Stocks
The State Of JavaScript Survey
Hello Money, Goodbye Gun Stocks
The State Of JavaScript Survey