Timothy Plan International ETF (TPIF)

Timothy Plan International ETF (TPIF) holds stocks from developed and developing countries around the world, picking companies according to the same moral criteria Timothy Plan uses for its US portfolios but applied across borders.

What the fund actually holds

TPIF buys shares in companies based in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the Americas, and Africa. Unlike a US-only fund, it gives investors exposure to economies outside the United States — places where people work, companies grow, and dividends flow. The fund starts with a broad universe of profitable foreign companies and then applies Timothy Plan’s biblical screens: ruling out producers of alcohol, tobacco, and gambling products, firms tied to abortion services, and companies that the firm judges to breach Christian ethical standards.

What remains is a filtered list of foreign businesses — manufacturers, banks, consumer goods makers, energy firms, and infrastructure companies — that meet both the financial thresholds for inclusion and the moral criteria the fund managers use. Because countries differ in their industries, regulations, and corporate practices, the effect of the screens varies region by region. Some countries have strong alcohol or tobacco industries that get excluded; others do not. Some regions produce companies connected to gambling; others do not.

The challenge of applying one standard globally

Screening for religious principles across different countries and legal systems is harder than it sounds. A company legal and ordinary in one country might be controversial in another. TPIF’s managers must interpret what “Christian principles” mean when applied to firms in Saudi Arabia, Japan, India, and Brazil — places with different religious majorities, different laws, and different business practices. The fund’s documentation spells out the rules, but judgment calls are inevitable. Two managers might reasonably disagree on whether a given company’s practices align with the stated criteria.

Additionally, the pool of eligible companies shrinks when you combine international scope with moral screening. A US-focused fund can exclude, say, 15% of the market and still have thousands of remaining companies. A global fund that screens for biblical values across all countries and continents faces a smaller eligible universe. This concentration risk — that the remaining companies are fewer and possibly more correlated — is a trade-off built into any values-based international fund.

Why invest globally with screens attached

The traditional reason to own international stocks is diversification. US markets and US companies dominate the world economy, but they do not represent everything. Many industries are more concentrated outside the US: luxury goods in Europe, semiconductors in Taiwan, energy companies across the Middle East and Russia, technology firms in China and South Korea. An investor who holds only US equities forgoes exposure to global economic growth, misses entire industries, and bets on US outperformance continuing indefinitely.

TPIF lets an investor capture that international diversification while honoring values-based constraints. Rather than settling for either a US-only fund aligned with Christian principles or a global index that ignores those principles, TPIF attempts both at once. For a values-aligned investor, that trade-off is the whole point.

The practical costs and benefits

International exposure comes with currency risk. TPIF holds stocks denominated in euros, yen, pounds, and dozens of other currencies. When the dollar strengthens, the dollar value of those foreign holdings declines. When the dollar weakens, they rise. This currency movement adds volatility that a purely US fund does not have. Some investors see currency diversification as a benefit; others view currency fluctuation as an unwanted source of risk.

International also typically means higher costs. Markets outside the US are less efficiently priced in some cases, trading less frequently and with wider spreads. Regulatory and tax structures differ, sometimes requiring added administrative overhead. TPIF’s expense ratio reflects these realities: it is higher than a broad US-equity fund but consistent with other international ETFs.

The screening layer adds its own effect. By excluding certain industries and companies, TPIF does not hold a market-cap-weighted version of international equities. It is tilted toward firms that survive the biblical screens — which may or may not correlate with outperformance. In some periods, it might avoid a downturn in an excluded industry; in others, it might miss a strong rally in a screened-out sector.

What changes over time and what stays still

Timothy Plan’s screening criteria are stated in writing, which creates a baseline for consistency. However, markets change, companies evolve, and management’s interpretation of the rules can shift. A company that passes screening one year might be added to the exclusion list the next if its practices change. TPIF’s holdings are disclosed daily, so an attentive investor can track what the fund owns and spot when a position is dropped or added due to a breach of criteria.

For a long-term holder, the key question is whether Timothy Plan’s screening discipline remains intact and whether the company continues to apply the rules as originally stated. Pressure from investors, market trends, or other forces could theoretically cause the fund family to loosen or change the criteria over time. The fund’s prospectus and fact sheet document the approach, and any material change would likely be disclosed.

Research path

Anyone interested in TPIF should start by reading Timothy Plan’s published screening criteria and comparing them against the fund’s current holdings. Do the holdings make sense given the stated rules? Are there companies in the portfolio that seem surprising or inconsistent with the criteria?

Next, assess the fund’s performance relative to a global benchmark — a broad international-equity index or a comparable international fund without the biblical screens. Is TPIF’s return competitive, or does the screening come at a material performance cost? Neither outcome is wrong; the decision depends on whether values alignment is worth the trade-off to you.

Finally, understand the currency exposure. What portion of TPIF is in euros, yen, and other major currencies? Does that geographic breakdown align with your investment goals? If you already own international exposure elsewhere in your portfolio, adding TPIF might create concentration in a particular region or currency. That matters for overall portfolio construction.