The Morningstar Women’s Empowerment Index, which has recently celebrated its third birthday, has outperformed the broad US equity market in 2021 according to new analysis from Morningstar Indexes.

Have you considered how “ESG friendly” your investment portfolio is today? Morningstar Indexes recently examined a variety of investment approaches as represented by Morningstar equity indexes. The analysis applied company-level Sustainalytics ESG Risk Ratings and Carbon Data to explore this question for its investor clients.

While low volatility indexes can be a useful tool to manage portfolio risk through a range of market cycles, investors should be aware that differences in low volatility index construction can make a difference in performance during rising rate environments.