After the tariff storm, the stock market rebounds and Japan's retirement fund giant GPIF earns a whopping $6.8 billion in a single quarter.

As global and Japanese stock markets rebound strongly from the sell-off triggered by US tariffs, the Japanese government's pension fund (GPIF) achieved significant gains in the three months ending in June. One of the world's largest pension funds announced on Friday that it achieved an investment return of 10.2 trillion yen ($678 billion) for the quarter, compared to 8.97 trillion yen in the same period last year, with a return rate of 4.09%, and total assets increased to 260.02 trillion yen. The return rate for domestic stocks was 7.5%, while bond investments fell slightly by 0.2%; the return rate for overseas stocks was 7.4%, and foreign bonds had a yield of 1.6%. This year, GPIF's investment performance has been volatile due to the sharp fluctuations in financial markets caused by US trade tariff policies, as well as concerns about Japan's fiscal deficits affecting domestic government bonds. GPIF President Kazuto Uchida stated in an interview last week that the fund was able to withstand the recent volatility in the domestic bond market, and believed that the newly reached US-Japan trade agreement would have a positive impact on the stock market. To address the current market volatility, Japan's largest pension fund plans to strengthen portfolio rebalancing operations through futures instruments, and to conduct in-depth research on the correlation between different assets. Since 2021, GPIF has rapidly expanded its allocation to alternative investments and established a dedicated team to carry out related research. According to GPIF's investment model, its funds will be evenly distributed among four major asset categories: Japanese domestic stocks, domestic bonds, foreign stocks, and foreign bonds, with a target allocation of 25% for each asset class.