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Feb. 3 (UPI) -- Japan's massive public pension fund continued its longest ever losing streak, reporting on Friday a $14.2 billion loss for the third quarter, its fourth straight quarter of negative returns. The Government Pension Investment Fund, the world's largest pool of retirement savings and the largest public investor in Japan, blamed the performance on the strength of the dollar against the yen which pushed down the book value of its investments abroad.
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Its investments results update shows a -1% return for the quarter, $1 billion more than it lost in the second quarter, as the value of its investments plummeted amid its longest losing streak since 2003 when it reported four consecutive quarterly falls.
The fund increased its risk as U.S. inflation stabilized and monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve receded, GPIF President Miyazono Masataka said in a statement.
Losses reduced its total assets to $1.45 trillion from 1.47 trillion in the third quarter, the fund said, bringing total losses for 2022 so far to $56.1 billion.
The GPIF said its foreign bond assets took the biggest hit, falling 5.3%. Its bond investments at home also ended the October to December quarter lower, losing 1.7%.
However, the fund's domestic stocks rose by 3.2%.
"Its investments were hit by a rise in interest rates as well as a stronger yen, but it will have no choice but to stick to its base portfolio," said Hidenori Suezawa, an analyst at SMBC Nikko Securities told the Japan Times.
The fund likely sold both foreign and domestic stocks and bought bonds during the last quarter for rebalancing, he said.
The results came three days after Norway's largest sovereign wealth fund posted a negative return of -14.1%, or $164 billion, for 2022 despite spiraling oil and gas prices.
The Government Pension Fund Global's biggest losses came from the fund's holding in equities and fixed-income investments which saw returns of -15.3% and -12.1% respectively.
It was the fund's worst performance in 14 years -- but it was in line with global stock markets which also suffered their worst year since 2008.
"The market was impacted by war in Europe, high inflation, and rising interest rates,'' Norges Bank said in a news release.
''This negatively impacted both the equity market and bond market at the same time, which is very unusual. All the sectors in the equity market had negative returns, with the exception of energy," said Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management.
The fund is known as the ''Oil Fund'' because it was established to invest the profits of the country's massive oil and gas sector. More than two-thirds of its assets -- 69.8% -- are invested in equities.
