It has been revealed that the National Pension Service (NPS) achieved a return on investment of over 40 percent through its investments in U.S. stocks last year. This is attributed to the historical bull market recorded in the U.S. stock market.
According to the stockholding report (13F) submitted by the NPS to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Feb. 13, the value of U.S. stocks held by the NPS amounted to US$71.81 billion as of Dec. 31 last year. This represents a 41 percent increase compared to the same period the previous year, which was US$50.84 billion.
This increase is attributed to the favorable performance of the U.S. stock market last year, particularly driven by big tech stocks. On an annual basis, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 13.7 percent, while Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 Index and the NASDAQ Composite Index increased by 24.2 percent and 43.4 percent, respectively.
Last year, the NPS steadily acquired U.S. big tech stocks. It significantly expanded its holdings in the fourth quarter of last year as well.
In the fourth quarter of last year, the NPS purchased an additional 461,321 shares of Apple stock and 211,339 shares of Microsoft stock. Additionally, it also acquired shares of other companies including 263,238 shares of Amazon, 76,683 shares of Nvidia, 182,755 shares of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, and 74,160 shares of Meta, formerly known as Facebook.
Meanwhile, the NPS achieved a cumulative return rate of 9.88 percent from January to November last year. By asset class, it recorded returns of 16.50 percent for domestic stocks, 17.76 percent for overseas stocks, 4.76 percent for domestic bonds, 5.71 percent for overseas bonds, and 4.90 percent for alternative investments.