He says he is uneasy about the source of his cash, but insists that the Pioneer Fund has never tried to influence what he does.

ECONOMIST: WHAT WE LEARN FROM TWINS

The Minnesota research is financed by the Pioneer Fund, a foundation set up in 1937 to help research into heredity and eugenics, including racial differences.

ECONOMIST: WHAT WE LEARN FROM TWINS

One of the first mutual funds to incorporate socially responsible screening was the Pioneer Fund (PIODX), which since 1950 has avoided the stocks of companies whose primary business is alcohol or tobacco.

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Mutual fund pioneer John Bogle, the founder of The Vanguard Group, offers this rule of thumb for investors: Own the same percentage of bonds as your age.

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American fund powerhouses such as Fidelity, Templeton and Pioneer, and big British fund managers such as Flemings, have already spent freely to set up shop in Europe.

ECONOMIST: Fund management

Worthy of mention alongside greats such as Soros and Robertson, he was a pioneer of the hedge fund industry and he was one of the best.

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But recently, Pioneer Investments, an American fund-management firm, opened the first mutual fund to give individuals exposure.

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Mr. Soros was a pioneer of the modern hedge fund and is one of the world's most well-known investors.

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Even so, fund managers such as Pioneer and Flemings are putting their marketing effort into educating these brokers to promote their funds.

ECONOMIST: Fund management

Remember when the options-pricing pioneer Robert Merton won the award in 1997 a year before his hedge fund Long Term Capital Management imploded and almost took down the world financial system?

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