World's Biggest Pension Fund May Buy $47 Billion in Japan Stocks After Rout
- Selloff in Tokyo shares means fund is short of target: Daiwa
- GPIF also has room to cut domestic bonds, Merrill Lynch Says
Pedestrians walk through the Sugamo Jizo-dori shopping area of Tokyo, Japan, on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2015. Japan plans a record budget for next fiscal year to support an economy that fell into recession after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government increased the sales tax.
Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/BloombergThe world’s biggest retirement fund has scope to buy $47 billion in Japanese shares after they tumbled this year, according to Daiwa Securities Group Inc.
The 139.8 trillion yen ($1.2 trillion) Government Pension Investment Fund’s domestic equities probably fell to about 21 percent of assets at the end of February, short of the 25 percent goal for such investments, the brokerage wrote in a report published Tuesday. That means the Japanese fund could purchase as much as 5.3 trillion yen in shares, it said. GPIF may cut domestic bonds by 11.2 billion yen as holdings probably exceed their target, according to Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch unit.