Another quarter is Christian Coalition, and if you told them you'd put all their money in defense companies, they'd be happy. Clients' religious beliefs can be as varied as the products made to serve them. What's more, the number of products aimed at satisfying different religious beliefs is growing so quickly that information about what's available can be hard to track down. To use them effectively, you'll have to be sure of what your clients' preferences are and which products will match them best. That's not easy.
Products designed for Christian investing, for instance, have dozens of variants.
And belief systems rarely match up with ready-made products. Depending on your clients, you may need a whole range of options. Fear of that complexity can scare an adviser off, says David Miller, a former investment banker who now heads the Avodah Institute in Princeton, N.J., which helps businesspeople integrate their faith and work. It's another area you need to add to your bag of resources. It used to be that socially responsible investing, or SRI, was all most advisers needed to know about investing that's driven by morals.