Yesterday, West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore tweeted the following:

✅ West Virginia Board of Treasury Investments' assets under management surged to a new record, topping $10 billion for the first time in state history!

Read my full announcement here: https://t.co/rLQUl8nM64

— Riley Moore (@RileyMooreWV) February 23, 2023

While I have, over the years, become more investment savvy, I am an amateur in this area. Can any of my readers help me with the following questions:

1. The tweet references this announcement/press release which contain a number of links. There is, however, no link to support Moore’s claim that his office has outperformed all other investment entities including professional investors like Black Rock, JP Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley. I have spent, to no avail, a couple of hours trying to find these rankings. Would anyone know where I could find this evidence?

2. Since a state and an investment firm would have different financial goals, it seems to me that a rating agency would not be comparing a state’s investments to those from a major investment firm. Wouldn’t they be listed in separate categories? (It would be like comparing apples and oranges.) Is that a fair assumption?

3. Most importantly, the PR release praises Moore for his attacks on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing. But the supposed winning performance was in money market investments. Investopedia tells us that money market investments “include cash, cash equivalent securities, and high-credit-rating, debt-based securities with a short-term maturity (such as U.S. Treasuries).” There is no way that coal and other fossil fuel investments would be a part of money market investments. So even if WV beat every other investment in money market return, it’s totally unrelated to the point Moore is making about ESG investing. Am I reading this correctly?

I believe our publicity-chasing treasurer’s claims are irrelevant to his ESG thesis. I’d like more information, however.