INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
By Brandon KochkodinIf you wanted to outperform the market in 2019, one way was to avoid investing in companies that courted
controversy.
The data provider Indexica ranked companies on what it calls an anger metric
That means companies that, based on media and analyst reports, provoke a lot of outrage, frustration, annoyance and hatred.
The finding: A
portfolio comprised of S-P 500 Index stocks with the highest anger scores underperformed those with the least anger associated with them by
8 percentage points through Nov
8, 2019, according to Indexica.
Stocks that were in the high anger basket at some point in 2019 included fossil fuel energy companies such
and ConocoPhillips that were derided for ties to climate change
Those two companies lagged the S-P 500 Index by 9 percentage points and 25 percentage points, respectively, in 2019 through Dec
Of course, the energy sector was an underperformer this year.
Consolidated Edison Inc., the power utility for New York City, also made an
It returned 9 percentage points less than the benchmark index this year.
These returns may not sound surprising -- after all, who wants to