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For most people, investing in drugs and booze isn't the secret to getting rich

traffic cop cigar
traffic cop cigar

(Investing in companies that facilitate vice may be tempting, but it's not necessarily lucrative.Flickr / Corey Leopold)

In February, Credit Suisse shared the news that when it compared ten years of returns from a socially responsible mutual fund with one investing in "vice" — tobacco, booze, gaming, and defense – the sinful fund came out on top.

That still doesn't make investing in vice the key to success in the market.

Investing app SigFig looked at 12-month returns of 230,000 users, and found some underwhelming results.

While investors who owned stock in tobacco, marijuana, alcohol companies, or casinos, outperformed the average investor, they were still beaten by the S&P 500, a major stock market index. According to SigFig's measure, one in eight investors is invested in vice.

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An investor, then, with his money in a relatively unremarkable S&P 500 index fund (a favorite of legendary investor Warren Buffett), would have earned more over the year than one with the same amount of money in vice.

See SigFig's results:

sigfig vice 1
sigfig vice 1

(SigFig)

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