Japan's GPIF, the world's biggest pension fund, reported a $64B quarterly loss

Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), the world's largest, reported $64.34 billion loss, its biggest loss since 2008.

In a report by Reuters, the public pension fund lost a record 7.9 trillion yen during the third quarter due to financial turmoil caused by the Chinese economic slowdown. GPIF is valued at $1.2 trillion. It increased its target allocations for equities by two folds in October 2014, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe encouraged risk-taking and increased confidence in financial markets.

"Short term market moves lead to gains and losses, but over the 14 years since we started investing, the overall trend is upwards," said GPIF councilor Hiroyuki Mitsuishi in a report by Bloomberg. "Don't evaluate the results over the short term, as looking over the long term is important."

The International Business Times has reported that three out of the four major asset classes of GPIF reported negative returns in the third quarter. Its domestic stocks, foreign stocks, and foreign bonds all suffered loss, but its investment in the Japanese government bonds earned 300 billion yen, or $2.4 billion.

According to a statement released on Monday, GPIF lost 4.3 trillion yen in domestic stocks, 3.6 billion yen from its foreign stocks, and 240 billion yen from its foreign bonds from July to September. The total loss was bigger than the 5.7 trillion yen it lost during the 2008 global financial crisis. When it comes to earning rate, however, its 5.6 percent decline in the third quarter is less than the 6.1 percent it lost in the last quarter of 2008 and the 7.8 percent it lost during the third quarter of 2001.

The domestic stock market was severely affected by the Chinese economic slowdown, according to GPIF. Meanwhile, the increase of the yen's value led to investment losses in foreign equities. The Nikkei share average went down to 14.1 percent in the third quarter, while the Topix declined 13.5 percent.