Bloomberg reported Wednesday that CalPERS might “keep buying Russian bonds after building a $250 million position in local currency notes.” That amount, based on June 30 figures, represents about 5% of the fund's international fixed-income portfolio.
The fund is apparently attracted to the generous yields offered by ruble bonds; according to Bloomberg data, 10-year bonds are currently yielding 10.3%.
Over the past 10 years, CalPERS' international fixed income posted annualized returns of 3.3% vs. its custom benchmark of 2.5%.
Returns over the past one, three and five years were -13.5%, -3.7% and 1.2%, respectively.
