Inspire Growth ETF (GLRY)

Inspire Growth ETF combines two filters: it selects companies showing strong earnings growth and financial health, and it excludes those involved in industries or practices that conflict with specific social and religious values. The result is a thematically constrained growth portfolio for investors who want exposure to expanding U.S. businesses but have ethical or religious constraints on where they will own shares.

The Inspire investment philosophy

Inspire Investment is an asset manager founded on principles derived from faith-based and values-driven investing. The firm believes that investing in accordance with personal values need not sacrifice returns; instead, screening out companies involved in weapons manufacturing, tobacco, gambling, alcohol, abortion-related services, and other industries selected according to the fund sponsor’s ethical criteria simply focuses the portfolio on higher-quality businesses. The fund applies that philosophy to growth-oriented companies: find the best-performing growth stocks that also meet the ethical screens.

Selection and composition

GLRY begins with large and mid-cap U.S. equities showing accelerating earnings growth, then applies a two-stage filter. The first stage eliminates companies in prohibited sectors: weapons and defence contractors, tobacco and alcohol producers, gambling operators, providers of abortion services, and any company whose core business is incompatible with the Inspire values framework. This screening alone eliminates a meaningful fraction of the market cap, but primarily removes mature, low-growth industries that a growth fund would downweight anyway.

The second stage applies quantitative metrics: earnings growth rates, revenue growth, return on equity, debt levels, and operating margins. The fund selects from the remaining universe those companies showing above-median growth, profitability, and financial strength. The result is a concentrated portfolio of 50 to 70 holdings, typically skewing toward technology, healthcare, consumer discretionary, and other growth-oriented sectors.

The portfolio is rebalanced periodically to maintain the growth tilt and to refresh holdings as earnings forecasts shift. This is neither pure passive (matching an index) nor active stock-picking; it is systematic screening applied to a defined universe.

Sector and characteristic tilt

Because the values-based screening eliminates mature, dividend-paying industries (tobacco, alcohol, some utilities, defence), GLRY’s sector composition differs from a broad U.S. growth fund. Technology is typically overweighted, as are healthcare and discretionary consumer companies. Financials and energy are underweighted or absent, as are any heavily regulated industries.

Within the growth category, the fund tilts toward companies that combine strong earnings growth with reasonable profitability and manageable debt. This typically excludes the most speculative, unprofitable growth businesses — the early-stage biotech firms burning cash, the unprofitable software startups. The fund’s “growth” is disciplined growth: profit growth, not just revenue growth.

Volatility and drawdown patterns

GLRY’s volatility is higher than the broad stock market because growth stocks move more sharply than mature companies. In a rising-rate environment or recession, the fund typically falls more than the market average. In a strong bull market, it tends to outperform. This is the character of growth investing, independent of the values screen.

The values screen itself does not materially reduce or increase volatility; it primarily shapes which companies are held, not the degree of price movement. A growth investor concerned about volatility should consider a more balanced portfolio, not simply screen the growth allocation for values.

Expenses and trading

GLRY trades on the NASDAQ with moderate to good liquidity. The expense ratio is 0.50 to 0.60 per cent annually, reasonable for a values-screened, growth-oriented fund but higher than a passive broad-market index fund. The spread is tight enough for most investors to trade without friction.

The fund does not hold bonds or other non-equity assets; it is a pure-equity growth vehicle, so its returns correlate strongly with U.S. equity-market moves.

Who holds it and the values question

GLRY’s investors typically come from communities with specific religious or ethical commitments — Christian investors seeking funds that align with their values, or secular investors who prioritize screening out weapons, tobacco, and alcohol. The values screen matters because it reflects a real preference, not because it necessarily produces alpha. The fund’s return will ultimately depend on whether the remaining companies in the screened universe outpace the broad market growth strategy.

The philosophical underpinning is that profitability and ethical business practices align rather than contradict. The practical evidence is mixed: some screened sectors have outperformed (technology), whilst others have underperformed (the fund’s exclusion of financials meant missing part of the 2017–2019 bull run in bank stocks). Over a full market cycle, the values screen and the growth tilt together produce the fund’s return; either one could be the dominant driver.

How to research it

GLRY publishes a full holdings list and details its values-screening methodology. A researcher should review both the ethical criteria (to understand what is and is not screened out) and the financial criteria (to see what “growth” means operationally — earnings-per-share growth targets, margin requirements, and so on). Because the fund’s returns depend on U.S. growth-stock performance, tracking that market’s behaviour and the fund’s performance relative to other growth funds provides the most useful context.

The fund suits investors who have both a growth-oriented market outlook and a commitment to values-based investing. For those with only one criterion, a non-screened growth fund or a non-growth values-screened fund might be more appropriate.