Rich Bastards Love Tobacco Stocks
People who buy stocks in alcohol, tobacco, gambling, or (new!) marijuana companies are said to be investing in “vice”—traditionally a good way to earn premium returns in exchange for being a morally bad human. Who are these successful bastard investors?
A new report on vice investing from the financial firm SigFig breaks down who, exactly, is most invested in these devious, deadly, or just slightly harmful industries. (Unfortunately they don’t include weapons manufacturers in their vice category.) They say that 8% of investors overall are invested in at least one of these categories (excluding index funds, presumably).
Tobacco is by far the most popular vice investment, with 7% of all investors holding a tobacco stock. Tobacco is also arguably the most evil of all these investment categories. And, as the chart above indicates, tobacco is also the vice stock category most likely to be held by investors who are A) richer and B) live in a “red” state, not a “blue” state. Marijuana stocks, by contrast, are most favored by poorer, blue state investors.
Everyone is very stereotypical.
[Image via SigFig]