For the time being, however, fund managers have their sights on managing Japan's huge pool of pension money.

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Letting charter schools exit the pension system leaves a smaller pool of public school systems to cover existing funding gaps.

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Brent Burns : Well, we think about investors in the same way that a pension fund would think about its pool of pensioners.

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Because many shareholders own their shares through a mutual fund, a pension plan, or other investment pool actively managed by a third party, they are indirect or passive owners.

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Low interest rates and puny yields in the money markets mean that pension funds are receiving lower yields on their collateral pool reinvestments and hedge funds are, as a result, receiving diminishes rebates, boosting shorting costs.

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To minimize the excessive risks of the stock market and keep down investment management costs, we can invest the funds from all the individual retirement accounts as a pool, mirroring the way that the assets of a traditional pension fund are invested.

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As yields on stocks and bonds continue to hover near zero, pension funds and retail investors are diving headfirst into the murky, rocky end of the investment pool: hedge funds.

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