Dear Usman,
Thank you for your response, I have something to add:

1. A leveraged position short position in crude futures is an altogether different risk profile than a long equity position in consumer staples, you are comparing apples and oranges. Futures trading carries much more risk and pension portfolios are not in the business of trading futures as a business mainstay i.e. they may have a proportion of their investments in futures funds but it is not their usual business. Pension portfolios are usually in the buy and hold business and their investment horizon is for the long term and not a 6 month turnover trade that may or may not have materialised.

2. If the Australian pension portfolios are excluding tobacco stocks entirely from their business, they would have to be excluding all consumer staples ETF and S&P 500 which has 3 tobacco stocks in the portfolio clients should be made aware that this is the case as it is the biggest are for normal pension portfolios. How is this ethical from the standpoint of an investment professional it is experimental in nature for a pension portfolio to exclude consumer staples and the largest stock index on the basis that tobacco is bad for people health, they may as well exclude all of the military and defence stocks too.

3. In relation to your first point about tobacco being bad for ones health; there are many things that are considered bad for ones health and as an investment professional it is not the area of expertise to judge this; people have been smoking since the stone ages it is only in recent years with the advent of tobacco cessation products that smoking has become an anti social problem.

I look forward to your informed response,
Thank you,
Mary