This book brings together around fifty blog posts written in my role as the CEO of the State Pension Fund (Finland). The texts capture both everyday realities and extraordinary disruptions in the investment markets, while also reflecting on the strategic themes of institutional investing. They offer readers a unique perspective on how a pension fund views global events and their impact on financial markets.
The years 2020-2025 were marked by turbulence: the Covid19 crisis shook markets, rapid interest rate hikes challenged investors, energy companies and derivatives exchanges faced liquidity shortages, and several banks, including Credit Suisse, ran into serious difficulties. At the same time, geopolitical tensions such as Russia's war in Ukraine reshaped global alignments and directly influenced market dynamics.
Yet the book is not only about crises. It also highlights recovery, resilience, and the long-term logic of investing. Surprises are part of daily life in the financial world, but probabilities and long-term forecasts support that the system endures. Through these blogs, readers can follow how global events intertwine with the work of a pension investor and how analysis is formed in real time, based on the knowledge available at each moment.