Japan's government pension fund posts $60 billion investment loss

TOKYO : Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) posted a $60 billion quarterly investment loss on Friday, its worst quarterly result in a little more than four years, after the mammoth fund was hit by volatile markets.

GPIF, one of the world's largest pension funds, reported an investment loss of 9.13 trillion yen ($60 billion) in the July to September second quarter. That was its worst quarterly performance since the three months to March 2020.

The fund, which said its assets totalled 252.9 trillion yen, is closely watched in financial markets because of its size.

During the quarter it saw a 5.5 per cent investment loss on its foreign bond portfolio, and a 5.4 per cent investment loss on its foreign stock holdings.

Its domestic stock portfolio suffered a 4.9 per cent investment loss during the quarter. That included a tumultuous time in early August when the yen strengthened after the Bank of Japan began to raise rates, causing high-flying Japanese stocks to crash.

In a statement, GPIF President Masataka Miyazono cited the backdrop of the narrowing interest rate gap between the United States and Japan, which caused the yen to strengthen during the period, and mixed results for major stock indices both at home and abroad.

($1=152.5900 yen)

(This story has been corrected to fix the fund name to Government Pension Investment Fund, not Government Investment Pension Fund, in paragraph 1)