Fresno Retirement Systems Announce 10.37% Pension Return

The fund outpaced its 9.89% benchmark with strong stock returns.



The City of Fresno Retirement Systems announced a 10.37% net return in fiscal 2024. Assets of the Fresno, California-based fund grew to $3.975 billion as of June 30, and, like many other pension funds, strong stock returns contributed to a significant portion of the fund’s growth.

The fund’s fiscal year returns outperformed its policy benchmark of 9.89% and its actuarial assumed rate of return of 3.62%.

The fund holds 24.6% of its assets in domestic equities and 20% in international equities. The fund’s total equities portfolio, which includes a 7.2% allocation to private equity, returned 15.8%. Domestic stocks returned 23.2%, international stocks returned 10.2% and private equity returned 8.7%.

The fund’s rates and credit portfolio, which comprises 24.7% of the fund’s assets, grew 9.9% in the fiscal year. Core fixed income, making up 11.6% of the fund’s assets, grew 4.6%, while private credit, which comprises 13.1% of the total portfolio, returned 14.9%.

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CFRS’ real assets portfolio, which makes up 21% of the fund, lost 0.9% in the fiscal year, primarily due to negative returns in core real estate. That asset class, which comprises 9.7% of the total portfolio, returned negative 7.9%. Private real estate, which comprises 5.2% of assets, returned 3.6%, and infrastructure, with a 6% weight, returned 9.8%.

The fund’s multi-asset/alt credit portfolio, comprising 1.6% of the portfolio, returned 10.3%. Finally, the fund keeps 1% of its portfolio in cash, which returned 5.5% in the fiscal year.

The City of Fresno Retirement Systems manages the assets of the Employees Retirement System and the Fire & Police Retirement System. Combined, the systems have 3835 members and 3450 retirees.

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Stocks Tend to Zigzag Around Olympics, Says Ned Davis

They usually drop before the summer games, then recover, the research firm found.




How have stocks performed amid the Olympic Games? Historically, for the Summer Olympics, it has been a zigzag; that pattern may continue this year.

Stocks tend to drop leading up to the games, stabilize during them and rally once they are over, according to a study by Ned Davis Research that looked at Summer Olympics held every four years back to 1988. The host country’s stocks, though, usually slide just before the Olympics, then take off during and after.

In 2024, for France’s CAC 40, the performance indeed was down 6.7% for the three months before the games began in Paris, Davis stated. In July, the French index was flat. But since the Olympics commenced on July 24 through Thursday, it rose 1.4%.

This year, as of July when the Olympics started, stocks’ performance on a broad scale also has been muted: For the S&P 500, July and August generally are up. This July, the S&P 500 index rose just 1.1% and the MSCI All-Country World Index 1.75%. Since the games kicked off, the S&P and MSCI indexes are down.

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Of course, no one can say why stocks follow this path in relation to the Olympics. Ned Davis indicated that the market was oversold leading up to the games.

For the last Summer Olympics, in Tokyo in 2021, the ACWI slipped 0.4% three months before, rose 1.4% while the games were in progress, then jumped 6.1% in the three months afterward.

What about bonds? Since 1988, Davis wrote that “the host country’s long-term bond yield has been up slightly heading into the games and has declined afterward, with the yield’s level six months after the games usually lower than its level six months before them.”

For the Japan Olympics, its government bond yield was down a mere 0.03% six months before and up 0.16% for the six months after. How France will fare remains to be seen, long after the last medal is awarded.


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