The value of savings in employer-sponsored pension funds recorded their first decline in more than a year in the second quarter as jitters returned to global stock markets.
Assets in employer sponsored funds fell 0.7% from the first quarter to $936.5 billion, according to Statistics Canada. That was the first drop since the first quarter of 2009.
The decline came as the value of stocks held in the portfolios dropped 5.5% to $300.3 billion from the two-year high recorded in the first quarter. The drop outweighed a 5.4% gain in the value of bond investments, StatsCan said.
Volatility returned to global stock markets in the second quarter of 2010 on concern Europe’s sovereign debt crisis could tip the world back into recession.
Since the end of the second quarter, stock markets have rebounded taking Canada’s main S&P/TSX Index to a gain of about 12% this year to date.
The share of pension fund assets held in bonds gained 2.2% to 37.6%, while the proportion in stocks dropped 1.6% to 32.1%.
Pension fund revenues remained stable at $24.3 billion in the second quarter. Increases in pension contributions and investment income offset the reduced profits from the sale of securities.
The figures relate to securities held in trusteed plans. Of the six million Canadians with employer-sponsored pensions, about 4.9 million are held in such plans.
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