There are a few ASX shares that I’d love to buy for my child for Easter.
Getting some shares might be more life changing than chocolate, though a share certificate isn’t as edible as a chocolate egg. Maybe both?
Learning positively about investing could be one of the most useful things that a child learns about money. Compound growth is one of the most powerful forces that can help grow our wealth over time.
But with any ASX shares I bought for my child, I’d want that investment to be making a positive difference to the world as well:
Future Generation Global Invstmnt Co Ltd (ASX: FGG)
Future Generation is a really interesting listed investment company (LIC) in my opinion. It is invested in the funds of fund managers – who work for free – and are focused on global shares. It has a lot of underlying diversification, which is really useful in my opinion. Those fund managers work for free so that Future Generation Global can donate 1% of its net assets each year to youth mental health charities.
It’s never going to be the strongest performer because of the diverse investment strategies – but it has delivered outperformance with less volatility than the global share market.
Over the last five years, the Future Generation Global portfolio has returned an average of 13.4% per annum, outperforming the global share market by 0.9% per annum.
BetaShares Global Sustainability Leaders ETF (ASX: ETHI)
This exchange-traded fund (ETF) aims to invest in large, global businesses that have been identified as climate leaders and have also gone through an exclusion process that cuts out shares with exposure to fossil fuels or are engaged in activities deemed inconsistent with responsible investment considerations.
There are some great businesses in the portfolio like Apple, Tesla, NVIDIA, Mastercard, Home Depot, Visa, PayPal, ASML and Adobe.
You may think that ethical investing may lead to weaker returns. But that’s not the case, even with the 0.59% management fee.
Since inception in January 2017, ETHI ETF has delivered an average return per year of 20.6%.
BetaShares Climate Change Innovation ETF (ASX: ERTH)
This is another ETF based on being good for the climate, except this is much more focused on businesses making a difference. It’s about businesses that generate at least 50% revenue from products and services that help to address climate change and other environmental problems by reducing or avoiding CO2 emissions.
Sectors like renewable energy providers, green transport, waste management, sustainable product development and improved energy efficiency and storage.
I’m sure you’re wondering what shares qualify to make it into the portfolio. Well, those names include Trane Technologies, Infineon Technologies, Cie De Saint-Gobain, Zoom, Docusign, Tesla, East Japan Railway, Vestas Wind Systems, Nio and Enphase Energy.
It’s a pretty diversified ETF geographically, with only 42.9% of the portfolio in the US – usually it’s a lot higher. Other countries with a weighting of at least 3% include Germany, France, Ireland, the UK, Japan, Taiwan and Denmark.
I don’t know how well this portfolio is going to do in the future, but over the last three years it has returned an average of 36.6% per annum.
