Japanese Government Squanders Pension Funds On Failed Stocks As Losses Reach $130 Billion In Past Year

Nearly two years ago we wrote about how the largest pension fund in the world had been hijacked by political hacks in what would be a futile effort to prop up stocks in the “first failed Keynesian state, Japan.” The post came in response to Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund announcing that it would slash its fixed income portfolio to double its target allocation to domestic and foreign equities, in essence, going outright long Central Banks.   

Once upon a time, the world’s biggest government pension fund, Japan’s $1.1 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund, or GPIF, was apolitical, and merely focused on preserving the people’s wealth.

Then everything changed, and with the reckless abandon of a junkie on a crack cocaine binge, aka Abenomics, the GPIF management was kicked out, and its entire mandate was flipped from preserving wealth, to gambling on #Ref! P/E stocks, in hopes of recreating the wealth effect of the super-rich (the only problem: Japan has reached its breaking point and the higher the USDJPY, and thus the Nikkei rises, the more the BOJ directly destroys its economy with an already record number of bankruptcies due to the plunging Yen getting recorder).

Worst of all, the GPIF became nothing short of the latest political pawn in what is now the the first failed Keynesian state, Japan.

Unfortunately, for Japan, and its tens of millions of pensioners, the only news here is simple: the entire country is now held hostage by Japan’s last-gasp attempt to prove Monetarist and Keynesian policies work. Because, said otherwise, “Abenomics better work, or else all your pensions are toast.“

Then, last month after the GPIF reported it’s biggest fiscal year loss since the “great recession”, a mere 5.3 trillion yen ($53 billion), we asked whether the pension fund had finally learned it’s lesson. Would fund managers finally resort back to their original goal or preserving retiree wealth or continue in their failed efforts to prop up Japanese stocks. Alas, we concluded that maintaining the status quo was the most likely path forward.