We know that pensions are under pressure to fatten up, as they ready for a wave of boomer retirements. The result is that more institutional money is finding its way into the stock market--to a staggering degree. The most recent figures show that in 2005 pensions and other institutions owned 61.2 percent of all U.S. stocks. At the close of the dot.com era, the figure was just 51.4 percent. The issue, a perennial one, is whether the pensions are willing to use their clout to further change. We'll get an idea soon, as annual meeting season gets underway. My sense is that more pensions are getting comfortable with the idea of activism.  

For more:
- here's a Financial Times article