World's Largest Pension Fund Broke a Record

The world's largest pension fund broke a record. The Japanese Government Pension Fund closed the fiscal year with a record.

Pension Fund earned $339 billion in the fiscal year ending in March, gaining 25 percent. It was the largest annual gain since the fund was established in 2001. Among the assets owned by the fund, foreign stocks had the best performance with 59.4 percent, followed by domestic stocks with 41.6 percent. While the fund gained 7.1 percent on foreign bonds, it lost 0.7 percent on Japanese bonds. Masataka Miyazono, the head of the pension fund, has not lost any quarter since he took office in April 2020, while the total size of the assets managed by the fund reached $1.6 trillion, with earnings for four consecutive quarters. Stating that he did not expect to make such a big gain from the shares, Miyazono warned about the stock explosion in the markets and said that this could reverse in the coming years. The MSCI World Index gained 52 percent in the fiscal year ending in March, while Japan's benchmark index, the Topix Index, rose 39 percent. The 10-year US Treasury bond rose 107 basis points to 1.74 percent, while Japanese government bonds rose 12 basis points to 0.12 percent.