It’s nice to be virtuous, but business is business, and what a heavenly business vice stocks have turned out to be. The New York Post reports that during the past year, vice stocks have left returns of other stocks in the dust. Tobacco stocks were smoking, with Reynolds American soaring 42.8% and British American Tobacco climbing 35.3%. Likewise, investors who bet on International Game Technology cashed in with returns of 32.2%. Contrast that with the Standard & Poor’s 500, which rose just 6.1%, or the Nasdaq-100 Index, up only 5%. The Vice Fund, a mutual fund investing in betting, alcohol, tobacco and defense companies, returned 13.45% over the past 12 months. But something is said for being virtuous. The socially responsible Pax World Balanced Fund rose nearly 15%, even with its tight limits on investments. According to the Post, for example, Pax shedded its shares of Starbucks after the coffee company lent its name to a line of liqueurs. Starbucks’s stock price has since declined by more than 30%. Still, John Norton, a manager at the Vice Fund, takes issue with the Pax approach: “Investing should be about making money long-term, not about making social statements.”