'Abenomics' boosts returns at huge public pension fund

The fund's performance was helped largely by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's aggressive reflationary fiscal and monetary policies, which triggered the yen's fall and lifted the broad Topix stock index by almost 17 percent over the three-month period.

Global asset managers and market dealers closely watch the performance of the Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) due to the size of its portfolio — which is larger than the economy of Mexico, the world's 14th biggest.

The GPIF recorded an investment gain of 5.14 trillion yen (US$55.71 billion) in October-December, significantly higher than the previous quarter's 484 billion yen gain. That translates into a positive return of 4.83 percent, versus 0.49 percent in July-September.

The fund, which started operations in 2001, had its best quarter a year ago, in January-March 2012, posting an investment gain of 5.48 trillion yen and a positive return of 5.11 percent.

The fund's total asset size rose 4 percent to 111.9 trillion yen (US$1.21 trillion) as of end-December from 107.7 trillion yen in September.

The biggest investment gains were in domestic stocks — up 2.07 trillion yen for the fund's best quarter since January-March last year. The performance in Japanese stocks translates into a positive return of 16.71 percent. The benchmark Topix index, including dividends, rose 16.73 percent.

The GPIF had a positive return of 13.62 percent from foreign bonds and 13.78 percent from foreign equities.

However, returns on domestic bonds slipped 0.06 percent — an investment loss of 35.4 billion yen — for the first quarter since January-March 2011.

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