Anybody Invest with Ave Maria Funds?

[RWMorris]

Has anybody on this forum invested with Ave Maria? I did some research and like their policies on investing only with companies that agree with traditional Catholic values.
Does anybody have any feedback? I know it only takes $1000 to open an account with them.

 

[Kielbasi]

I’m not invested in them, but I am familiar with them.

The Ave Maria funds have been doing well, outperforming the NASDAQ index by a significant amount…

The possible financial pitfalls that Ave Maria faces is that they are a very small, only a few hundred million dollar fund group. If they grow rapidly, they will have to rapidly find more stocks to invest in. That could be a challenge to them, to continue to perform.

This segment, the “socially responsible” segment , has been around for a long time. Nothing exactly like Ave Maria, but the Washington Mutual fund has been around since the 1930s with a similar kind of policy (no tobacco, alcohol and gambling stocks) and they’ve been successful. No reason why Ave Maria can’t be successful in the long term as well.

Read the prospectus, and the annual report showing their holdings,before you buy. Remember you can lose money on any mutual fund purchase, no matter what their prior record is.

 

[vluvski]

The only negative thing I’ve heard about them is that they have a policy of holding onto stocks for a specified period of time in spite of poor performance. I was going to invest with them last year and then decided I needed the money accessible for downpayment on a house. Good thing, too.

 

[slipslide]

I like the idea of these funds, but the only problem I have with them is that because of their investing restrictions (no sin stocks) they may not be able to take advantage of full market potential growth and profit. For me personally, I don’t put any restrictions on my buying stocks and mutual funds, but I use the dividends and cap gains that I incur to increase my donations to charitable causes and my church. It’s sort of like I am using them to support my charitable causes. I mean, lets face it, these companies are not going to go away. As long as the human condition stays the way it is, we will always have companies that support or manufacture sinful things, so why not use these sinful profit gains for good. I know it’s a vicious cycle, but if these companies are making money from human weaknesses, way not take advantage of that to help out others that really need it.