Sustainable Impact Investing is gaining traction with the global investment community. In January 2020, BlackRock CEO Lawrence Fink, who oversees approximately $9 trillion in assets, announced that his firm would be investing in companies that are making progress on sustainability. He doubled down in his January 2021 letter, calling on company managements to disclose their plans for making their businesses "compatible with a net-zero economy" by 2050. As assets have flowed in over the past 40 years, Sustainable Impact Investing has evolved. The discipline, originally known as Socially Responsible Investing, focused at first on excluding companies that conducted business in South Africa, or participated in industries such as tobacco, alcohol, and firearms. But the performance of these initial strategies lagged, and the approach has been modified. Now, instead of merely identifying industries to avoid, the discipline promotes "sustainable" business practices across all industries that can have an "impact" on global issues such as the climate, hunger, poverty, disease, shelter, and workers' rights.

This pick list highlights constituents of the Morningstar US Large Cap Index that we believe offer investors the best risk-adjusted return prospects. Stocks of large-cap companies where neither growth nor value characteristics predominate. Stocks in the top 70% of the capitalization of the U.S. equity market are defined as large cap.

The stock market performed well last week, capping off an impressive first quarter. During the shortened week, tech stocks bucked a losing trend and outperformed blue chips. During Friday's session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 172 points, or 0.52%. The S&P 500 was up 1.18%, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 1.76%. For the week, the DJIA was up 534 points, or 1.64%, the S&P 500 was up 2.82%, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 3.87%. Year-to-date, the DJIA is up 8.32%, the S&P 500 is up 7.02%, and the Nasdaq Composite is up 4.59%.