Asset AllocationFebruary 8, 2023

Japan’s GPIF Suffers 4th Straight Quarterly Loss for 1st Time in 20 Years

Investment losses for the first three quarters of fiscal 2022 totaled more than $55 billion.

Reported by Michael Katz

Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund reported a 0.97% loss in the third quarter of fiscal 2022, its fourth straight quarterly loss—the fund’s longest losing streak since 2003. The loss is equal to 1.85 trillion yen ($14 billion) and lowers the fund’s total asset value to a little more than $1.43 trillion, as of December 31, 2022.

The performance brings the sovereign wealth fund’s investment loss to 3.71% for the first three quarters of fiscal 2022, ending December 31, 2022, after having lost 1.91% and 0.88%, respectively, during the first two quarters of the fiscal year. With one quarter remaining in the fiscal year, the pension giant has lost more than 7.325 trillion yen (approximately $55.2 billion).

Japanese equities were the best-performing asset class for the fund’s investment portfolio during the quarter and the only one to report gains, with a return of 3.24%. However, this was just below the benchmark’s return of 3.26% for the asset class.

Foreign equities were relatively flat, down only 0.05% during the quarter, compared with a 0.01% loss for its benchmark, while domestic bonds lost 1.73%, ahead of its benchmark’s loss of 1.88%. Foreign bonds were the worst-performing asset class, losing 5.33% during the quarter; however, this outperformed its benchmark, which lost 5.81%.

All of the fund’s asset classes were down during the first three quarters of fiscal 2022, with Japanese equities also the top-performing asset class, losing 1.39%, or 612.9 billion yen, through year-end 2022. Japanese bonds were down 3.78%, or 1.88 trillion yen, during the same period, while foreign bonds and foreign equities were down 4.26% and 5.87%, respectively, or 2.11 trillion yen and 2.71 trillion yen, respectively.

As of the end of 2022, the pension fund’s asset allocation was 26.07% in Japanese bonds, 25.07% in Japanese equities, 24.59% in foreign bonds and 24.27% in foreign equities.