The Massachusetts state pension fund continues to be a category leader and one of the industry standards for performance, risk management and cost control. The Pension Reserves Investment Management Board (PRIM) produced a strong 17.7 percent return in calendar year 2017 for the Pension Reserves Investment Trust Fund – besting others in PRIM’s peer group of funds the same size or larger.

The $72 billion PRIT Fund saw six of its seven major asset classes outperform their respective benchmarks in 2017 – producing an investment gain of $11.1 billion.

“It is important to put the recent market volatility into context.  The current bull market began in March of 2009 and has been one of the longest and steadiest on record,” said PRIM Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer Michael G. Trotsky, CFA, in remarks to the PRIM Board today. “Since the November 2016 election, we have enjoyed unusually consistent monthly gains: Through January of this year the S&P 500 rose for 15 consecutive months.  So, we believe that the recent February volatility really should come as no great surprise.  Markets do not go up in a straight line forever and … we have been preparing for some turbulence. Strong performance in both up markets and down markets is a strong indication that our strategies and risk control is working well.”