Nasdaq-listed online global share brokerage, Interactive Brokers, has bottled environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment into a mobile app allowing feel-good fingertip-based stock-trading.
In a release last week, Interactive Brokers said the new, patent-pending, IMPACT app would help “investors easily align their portfolios with their values and help shape the future they wish to see”.
Based on data sourced from third-party providers, the new app enables investors to create share portfolios aligned to 13 “personal investment criteria” ranging from clean air to “mindful business models”.
IMPACT also includes a negative screening tool that excludes stocks across 10 deadly sin categories such as guns, gambling and greenhouse emissions.
Furthermore, the ESG-in-a-minute tool allows investors to instantaneously swap one US-listed stock for another (on a same-same dollar basis) according to comparative impact scores.
Will Peterffy, Interactive Brokers ESG director, said: “IMPACT takes the utility and values alignment offered by our Impact Dashboard and places it in the palm of the investor’s hand.
“We’re leading a new generation of investors making values-based investments by enabling them to develop their own conscious investment plan based on their personal values providing accountability and transparency.”
The firm also rolled out a low-cost crypto-currency trading service in September, promising to significantly undercut existing providers in the game.
Founded by Thomas Peterffy in 1977, Interactive Brokers has evolved into one of the most technological-savvy trading platforms in the world.
Headquartered in the traditional hedge fund enclave of Greenwich, New York, the firm boasts about 1.5 million client accounts globally, executing almost 2.8 million trades per day.
The rush to assemble ESG-compliant data for investors also saw ratings firm, Moody’s, switch on a new climate change ‘solution’ last week to match portfolios against global temperature targets.
In a statement, Andrew Grant, Moody’s ESG Solutions Group vice president climate solutions, said: “Moody’s ESG Solutions’ Temperature Alignment Data provides greater transparency on whether companies’ net zero commitments are in line with what’s required to keep warming below 1.5°C, highlighting that there is critical need for increased ambition.”
The Moody’s dataset covers about 4,400 of the world’s biggest companies and will grow over time.
“Banks and asset managers can use the data to quantify and monitor corporate emissions targets and the temperature alignment of their portfolios, while companies can benchmark their emissions targets against peer targets and market expectations,” the release says.
The first cut of the Moody’s climate numbers, however, suggests an implied average global temperature rise ahead of almost 3°C if corporate carbon emissions remain as is.
According to the data analysis, just over 40 per cent of the 4,400 firms included have set emissions targets but only 3 per cent of those align with the Paris climate agreement goal of 1.5°C by 2050.
“Sector results vary widely, but every individual sector covered has an implied increase of above 2°C and fails to rise to the ambitions of the Paris agreement,” the release says.