THE ANTI-WOKE INVESTORS

New ETFs are pitching themselves to conservatives mad at corporate America

- Pat Regnier

Dan Grant is fed up with “wokeness.” He’s sick of such companies as Nike Inc. and Coca-Cola Co. taking liberal positions on social justice issues. “People are tired of woke companies, tired of wokeness overall, and tired of companies putting their social justice activism ahead of generating profits for their shareholders,” Grant says, sitting in a small Nashville office festooned with dinosaur fossils and a pet Australian snake-necked turtle named Melvin.

The former JPMorgan Chase & Co. banker is betting that the 74 million people who, like him, voted for Donald Trump are mad about it, too—mad enough to buy shares of his company’s exchange-traded funds, which invest in companies Grant and his colleagues deem unwoke. That means they lean right politically or are at least neutral in their activism and donations. Grant is chief executive officer of 2ndVote Advisers, a small group of politically conservative money managers pushing against what they see as a stampede toward left- leaning, socially conscious investing on Wall Street.

Last year, 2ndVote Advisers began rolling out a series of conservative-themed ETFs—focused on issues such as guns, abortion, and censorship— that Grant has been touting on right-wing talk radio. “We’re saying enough is enough,” Grant told Sebastian Gorka, the bombastic former Trump adviser who started a radio show after he was fired from the White House. “We’re telling these CEOs to stop doing what the left is pressuring them to do.”