Strive Asset Management, the investment firm against “woke capitalism,” has launched its latest exchange traded fund, the Strive Emerging Markets ex China ETF (NYSE Arca: STXE). STXE is a passively managed ETF designed to track the performance of the Bloomberg Emerging Market ex China Large & Mid Cap Index, which seeks exposure to large- and mid-capitalization equity securities across 24 emerging market economies, excluding China.
Through corporate governance practices, including voting proxy shares and proactively engaging with management teams and boards, the firm aims to unlock value across all corporations in STXE’s portfolio by mandating companies to focus on profits over politics. Per the fund’s fact sheet, “The benchmark methodology does not account for any ESG factors.”
“Strive believes China risk is investment risk and underappreciated in the market due to conflicts of interest at many large asset managers,” the fact sheet added.
Strive was launched last year to push back against so-called “stakeholder capitalism.” Its debut fund, the Strive U.S. Energy ETF (NYSE Arca: DRLL), was launched in August. The firm includes PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel among its early investors.
In October, Strive executive chairman Vivek Ramaswamy appeared on Bob Pisani’s ETF Edge along with VettaFi head of research Todd Rosenbluth to discuss ESG investing. Ramaswamy attempted to argue that ESG isn’t just about ESG funds but also the “green smuggling” of political issues into non-ESG funds. Rosenbluth pointed out that “there are no ESG-only firms. The fact that we have an anti-ESG firm is ironic because we don’t have any ESG firms.”
STXE has an expense ratio of 0.32%.
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