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World's biggest pension fund has best performance in 2 years

Bloomberg Published on Fri, Jul 07, 2017 / 5:07 PM GMT+8

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(July 7): The world’s biggest pension fund posted its best annual gain in two years, as Japanese and overseas stocks rose while government bonds slid.

The Government Pension Investment Fund returned 5.9%, or 7.9 trillion yen ($96.4 billion), in the year ended March 31, increasing assets to a record 144.9 trillion yen, it said in Tokyo on Friday. That’s the biggest advance since the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015, when it had its best annual performance on record. Domestic equities added 4.6 trillion yen as the benchmark Topix index climbed 12%, outweighing a loss on foreign and domestic bond holdings. Foreign stocks rose, increasing 4.3 trillion yen.

The Japanese retirement fund’s annual gain is a welcome change from the year before when it posted its worst performance since the global financial crisis after overhauling its strategy in 2014 to buy more shares and cut debt assets. GPIF, which has more than 80% of its stock investments in strategies that track indexes, benefits when broader equity markets are rising.