Religion: Evangelical Christian
5-year annualized return: 17.1%
Fund manager: Susan Byrne, Westwood Management
The Timothy Plan family of funds is unique, because it does more than give guidelines to their fund managers. It has a "Hall of Shame" list of companies involved in practices "contrary to Judeo-Christian principles," as decided by the group's researchers.
The Timothy Plan, which represents a conservative evangelical Christian group, believes "there are sins today that stand out in our society, which we feel as investors and particularly Christian investors we need to stay away from," according to the firm's Web site. Those include alcohol, tobacco, gambling, pornography, abortion, and non-traditional married lifestyles.
There are 40 companies deemed offensive in its "Hall of Shame," including Time Warner, CNNMoney.com's parent company.
Susan Byrne, who runs the Large/Mid Cap Value fund for the Timothy Plan, says despite the restrictions, that hasn't stopped her from finding many great investments. That's been the case with the red-hot energy sector: The fund's biggest holding is ExxonMobil and other top ten investments include Apache Corp and Occidental Petroleum.
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