Strive Asset Management has swapped out the index underlying its “anti-ESG” US small-cap equity ETF.

Strive pursues an active corporate governance approach aimed at mandating companies to focus on profits over politics.

Effective 11 January 2023, the Strive 2000 ETF (STXK US) switched from tracking the Bloomberg US 2000 Index and is now linked to the Bloomberg US 600 Index.

To reflect the change in the index, the fund has been renamed to the Strive Small-Cap ETF. Its ticker has remained unchanged.

The outgoing index targets mid and small-cap companies, comprising the 2,000 largest securities outside of the large-cap Bloomberg US 1000 Index. Constituents are weighted by float-adjusted market capitalization.

The incoming index, meanwhile, homes in on the small-cap segment by targeting the lower 600 stocks by capitalization in the Bloomberg US 1500 Index.

While Strive’s ETFs passively track their underlying indices, the firm pursues an active corporate governance agenda, including voting proxy shares and proactively engaging with management teams and boards, seeking to unlock value by mandating the funds’ underlying companies to focus on profits over politics.

According to Strive, the largest asset managers are exerting staggering influence on nearly all public companies, leveraging their clients’ money to advocate for political and social agendas that Strive believes most of their clients actually disagree with.

Strive’s products, in contrast to divesting in “bad acting” companies, fully replicate their broad market indices while using the firm’s vote and voice to maximize the financial interests of their clients, with no “mixed motives.”