Mutual funds are collections of stocks bundled together, sometimes hundreds or thousands of companies. They are some of the most popular investment products for retirement plans, because owning so many company stocks at once helps diversify investment risk. But unless you're a financial professional, it can be difficult to find out just what companies are inside the funds you're invested in. That's where we come in. We examine every holding in thousands of funds to determine if there are investments in weapon stocks.
Some funds actively choose to invest responsibly, by considering environmental or social issues when choosing companies to invest in. If you're thinking about weapon free investing, socially responsible funds can be a good place to start, because they often deliberately avoid companies that make military weapons and civilian firearms. We feature nearly a hundred socially responsible funds in our database.
While people may become interested in responsible investing because of personal values and goals, that doesn't mean they're not looking for a competitive financial return on their investments. Fortunately, the evidence is clear: sustainable and responsible investors do not have to pay more to align their investments with their values, or to avoid companies with poor environmental, social or governance practices. The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment has collected the research.
Weapon Free Funds sources financial data on equities and mutual funds from Morningstar. Our database contains information on thousands of U.S. open-end and exchange traded mutual funds, some of the most common funds held in 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and other retirement plans.
Search for mutual funds using name, ticker symbol, or asset manager. Use the search page to filter funds by investing style, fund family, and more. When you find a fund you're looking for, click on it to see the full results.
We don't have everything in our database — we only screen mutual funds that own direct stock investments, and can only display up to 3,000. Looking for your favorite fund and can’t find it? With more resources, we could include more funds — make a gift today to make a difference.
For each mutual fund in our database, we examine every holding and determine if it is a stock issued by a weapon company.
We only look for direct stock holdings in weapon companies. That means that holdings that are not stocks, like cash holdings or bonds, are not rated. In the fund's investment profile, we show a "Percent Rated" metric, equivalent to the percent of the fund that is invested in stocks. The higher a fund’s Percent Rated value, the more holdings we were able to examine. A fund with a lower Percent Rated value may have hidden weapon-related investments that our tool cannot account for, in the form of bond holdings or other asset types.
Our analysis checks funds for direct stock investments in two types of weapon companies: military weapons, and civilian firearms.
Within these two types of weapon companies, we divide companies into five separate weapon categories (with some companies belonging to more than one category):
- Military weapons:
- Major military contractors
- Cluster munitition and landmine manufacturers
- Nuclear weapon manufacturers and servicers
- Civilian firearms:
- Civilian firearm manufacturers
- Civilian firearm retailers
You can adjust your screen settings to change how the data is displayed for you. The default screen grouping is "All weapons", which covers all five categories across both military weapons and civilian firearms. You can also choose to screen for just investments in the companies from the military weapons categories, or just the civilian firearms categories.
More details on each screen, including the full lists of companies flagged and the source of the company research, are available below:
UPDATE: As of August 2019, we've updated the labels for our weapon grades from "low risk / medium risk / high risk" to letter grades of "A / B / F". The grade is still calculated the same way. Read on to learn how we grade funds on weapon investments.
Mutual funds can have a varying number of holdings, from less than one hundred to several thousand. We calculate the total number of flagged holdings in the fund, and the total amount and percentage of the fund’s assets that are invested in those companies.
Based on what companies a fund invests in, for each of the three screen groupings (military weapons, civilian firearms, and both military and civilian weapons combined), the fund can earn one of three weapon grades for each screen group:
If a fund has a weapon grade of A and does not have direct stock investments in any of the weapon companies we screen for, you'll see a chart like this:
However, if a fund doeshave direct stock investments in any of the weapon companies we screen for, you'll see a chart like this, showing the overall exposure.
Next to the chart, you'll see the exposure breakdown for each of the five weapon categories.
If you click a category that a fund has exposure to, you'll see the chart change to a breakdown of the individual companies in that category that the fund owns.
You'll also see each investment for that weapon category listed below.
We use Morningstar's "socially responsible fund" indicator to determine which funds are displayed as socially responsible. Socially responsible funds make investment decisions based on issues like environmental responsibility, human rights, or religious views. A socially responsible fund may take a proactive stance by selectively investing in, for example, environmentally-friendly companies, or firms with good employee relations. They may also avoid investing in companies involved in promoting alcohol, tobacco, or firearms, or in the defense industry. Look for this symbol to find funds that are designated socially responsible.
The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment is a group advancing sustainable, responsible, and impact investing. Asset managers who are members of US-SIF often have policies to exclude or restrict investments in companies involved in the production, licensing, and/or retailing of weapons. Look for this symbol to find funds that are members of US-SIF.
When you're done looking up funds and finding the data you need, what's next? You can learn how to make a change and move your money with our weapon free action toolkit. Whether you’re an individual investor or if your investments are in your employer-sponsored plan at work, our step-by-step toolkit can help. There's an in-depth guide to responsible investing, links to external resources, a sample letter to send to your employer 401(k) manager, and more — everything you need to make a change and get started investing your money weapon free.
