Pension funds that are actively tweaking the mix of stocks they hold likely might decide to play it safe.
replyOn the other hand, do you want to be the one who says, "As a rule we follow the index, but this time we decided to break our own rule, and as a result we lost X% of returns"?
Better wrong with everybody else than wrong on my own.
The reason pension funds include index funds in their mix of investments is because those funds have two features that are exactly what pension funds are aiming for: (1) broad diversification, and (2) conservative inclusion rules that avoid undue exposure to highly volatile firms.
replyChanging one of those features undermines the reasons for including the index. Doing it specifically for the purpose of including a firm where large pension funds have also been extraordinarily critical of the governance structure as a particular source of risk [0] even moreso.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/new-york-california...