The synchronization of global investment markets is taking a toll on some pension funds, while others are attaining more robust returns in these volatile financial times.
“Conventional wisdom of portfolio diversification is when we lose money in equity we make a profit in fixed income,” Hiromichi Mizuno, CIO of Japan’s $1.5 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund, told the board of the $378 billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System — the largest pension fund in the United States — during a visit to Sacramento on Aug. 20. “But we lost in every single asset [class] and lost in the currency translation as well. It never happened in the past.”
GPIF — the world’s largest pension fund — recorded losses in equities, fixed-income and currency positions in the final three months of 2018, reported Bloomberg.
GPIF saw only a 1.52 percent rate of return for fiscal 2018, which ended March 31, 2019, hindered primarily by a total fiscal t