
Buy Good, Sell Evil

Its a virtuous move. But does virtue pay? The California Public Employees Retirement System (the nations largest pension, at $232 billion) estimates that such a divestment from offending global energy companies would have cost the fund as much as $725 million over the past five years. For Florida, whose $125 billion pension fund is the fourth largest in the country, the timing may be fortunate: Growing exploration and infrastructure costsand recent market jitters about falling demand for costly gasolinehave sent shares of Royal Dutch Shell down 13 percent since last year and Repsol 14 percent.
Still, most analysts advise against unloading oil holdings right now. Luckily, Florida has a loophole: Should a sell-off incur losses of more than 0.5 percent of the funds total value, terror stocks would suddenly be welcome again. We would have the right to make reversals, a spokesperson says. But its hard to imagine that would ever happen.