Domini Social Index 400

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Domini Social Index 400

An index tracking 400 publicly-traded companies in the United States known for socially responsible investing. The index excludes companies that produce alcohol, tobacco, weapons, nuclear power, and other controversial products. The Domini 400 includes around 250 companies on the S&P 500 and other companies known for sustainable business practices. It was launched in 1990 and is weighted for market capitalization. See also: Ethical investing, Green fund, Islamic finance.

Domini Social Index 400.

The Domini Social Index 400 is a market capitalization weighted index that tracks the performance of companies that meet a wide range of social and environmental standards.

For instance, the index screens out companies that manufacture or promote alcohol, tobacco, gambling, weapons, and nuclear power. It includes others that have outstanding records of social responsibility.

About half the stocks included in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index (S&P 500), on which the Domini Index is modeled, make the cut, including giants like Microsoft and Coca-Cola. The other stocks are selected based on the industries they represent and their reputations for socially conscious business practices.

The index is considered a benchmark for measuring the effect that selecting socially responsible stocks has on a financial portfolio's performance. This practice is also called social screening.

References in periodicals archive ?

Statman (2000) compared the Domini Social Index (DSI) and the S&P index during the 1990-98 periods.

Green investing: is it different from socially responsible investing?

"I think the Domini Social Index has been around for 15 years and the return of it and the S&P 500 is almost identical," Loving says.

Good Corp., Bad Corp. The implications of David Baron's research on corporate citizenship for advisors and their SRI-inclined clients

The Domini Social Index 400 was started in 1990, and it mirrors the S&P except that the stocks were passed through social screens.

Practice what you preach

Many of the largest socially responsible mutual funds, including a leading benchmark, the Domini Social Index, have been laggards for years.

The next catastrophe: think Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were a politicized financial disaster? Just wait until pension funds implode

For mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, the most common benchmark or index is the Domini Social Index, which is a product of KLD Research & Analytics, Inc.

The cost of being good

QHSAS 18001, Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the Domini Social Index 400.

Sharing the wealth: by giving in times of need, corporations can do good in the community--and for the bottom line

These findings have been clearly borne out by the success of the Domini Social Index (DSI), which is a screened, slightly trimmed-down cousin of the S&P 500 (a roster of 500 large companies that represents the stock market as a whole).

Working capital: can socially responsible investing make a great green leap forward?

This is what became the Domini Social Index, which the Domini Social Equity Fund replicates.

Profits and principles

Wells Fargo is listed in the Domini Social Index, a stock portfolio of socially responsible companies, along with AT&T, Reebok, Scholastic, Starbucks, and Sun Microsystems.

Tempting gay employees

The Social Investment Forum reports that approximately $529 billion are now invested under some type of social screening.(8) Practitioners have been emboldened by strong recent performance: the Domini Social Index (DSI), an index of 400 stocks passing typical social screens, has outperformed the Standard and Poor's 500 since its inception in May 1990, and virtually erased memories of the underperformance of South Africa-free portfolios in the late 1980s.

Investment in minority-owned media: a social investor's perspective

In his primary thrusts, Henwood assaults the Domini Social Index for including some large corporations with questionable social or environmental records and complains that more SRI portfolios have a tobacco screen than a labor screen--concluding that the slogan "Do well by doing good" should be changed to "Do well by not doing such pure bad."

Baby with the bathwater

For example, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the investment firm Kinder, Lydenberg and Domini (KLD) has compiled the Domini Social Index, a list of 400 socially screened corporations, which serves as a benchmark for the universe of stocks from which social investors might choose.