Okayama Metal & Machinery has become the first Japanese pension fund to make public purchases of gold, in a sign of dwindling faith in paper currencies.

Initially, the fund aims to keep about 1.5 per cent of its total assets of Y40bn ($500m) in bullion-backed exchange traded funds, according to chief investment officer Yoshisuke Kiguchi, who said he was diversifying into gold to "escape sovereign risk".

The move into a non-yielding asset comes as funds in the world's second-biggest pension market are under increasing pressure to meet promised payments, as domestic interest rates remain rooted near zero. This year, the first of Japan's baby boomers turn 65, becoming eligible for payouts.

Mr Kiguchi said the lack of yield was a concern for the fund's investment committee, but he persuaded them that "from a very long-term point of view, gold may be one of the safe currencies". He added that he had sold Australian dollars this month to meet his initial target allocation for gold for the fund, which has 20,000 members.

Mizuho Trust & Banking, a unit of Mizuho Financial Group, has begun to offer investment schemes allowing smaller pension funds to invest in gold.

While few fund managers are counting on a crash in core assets such as Japanese government bonds, said Takahiro Morita, head of the Tokyo arm of the World Gold Council, a producers' association, they were increasingly receptive to the idea that gold could act as a buffer against shocks. "Last year's tsunami and the eurozone debt crisis shows that it was wise to expect the unexpected," he said.

Historically, institutions in the $3.4tn Japanese pension market have clung to traditional assets. Bonds accounted for 59 per cent of industry assets in 2011, the highest share in the world, according to Towers Watson, a consultant. Just 6 per cent - the lowest share - was invested in alternatives such as property, private equity and hedge funds.

Within Japan the image of gold has struggled to recover the lustre lost after a scandal in the mid-1980s involving Toyota Shoji, which duped thousands of elderly investors by promising gold bars that were never delivered. Now, though, households are showing more interest.

Nomura, Japan's biggest wealth manager, added a gold option to its monthly survey of 1,000 randomly selected retail investors in February. Every month since, gold has been ranked the third-most desirable addition to portfolios, well ahead of competing assets such as investment trusts, bonds or foreign securities.
With institutions warming to gold, too, demand could grow further.

"If you look at assets over the past couple of decades, equity has been a loser, while fixed income offers tiny coupons," said Yoshio Kuno, Japan head of Newedge, the futures broker. "Gold is becoming an acceptable currency substitute."

David Fuller's view It is tempting to regard this as a contrary indicator because the smart money was buying gold over a decade ago as it completed a generation-long bear market. However, perhaps Japanese pension fund managers have good reasons to question the sustainability of multi-decade trends for JGBs and the yen.

I maintain that the yen is much too strong for the export-led Japanese economy and that 10-year JGBs yielding 0.834% are an accident waiting to happen. They were lower, briefly in 2003 but this historic chart also shows how prone extraordinarily low JGB yields have been to sharp reversals over the years. (See also Eoin's comment yesterday on gold in yen.)