The 100 largest U.S. public employee retirement systems had $3.381 trillion in assets as of Sept. 30, a 2.5% increase from three months earlier, said the U.S. Census Bureau's latest quarterly survey of public pension funds released Thursday.
Compared to the same quarter in 2015, assets were up 5.1%.
Earnings on investments rose $68.39 billion in the third quarter.
Corporate stocks, which make up 36.6% of the pension funds' holdings, increased 2.3% from three months earlier and 7.5% year-over-year. Corporate bonds, which make up 12.8% of holdings, had a quarterly decrease of 0.1% but a year-over-year increase of 4.1%.
International securities, which make up 19.4% of holdings, rose 4.1% in the third quarter and were up 10.4% year-over-year.
Other holdings were federal government securities, at 7.9%; state/local government securities at 0.1%; mortgages at 0.2%; cash and short term investments at 3.5%; and other securities, at 19.5%.
Government contributions increased 7.7% in the third quarter, reaching $33.5 billion. Employee contributions decreased 16.42% for the quarter, to $9.9 billion.
The 100 public pension systems represent 88.4% of all U.S. public pension fund assets. The survey is available on the Census Bureau's website.
