Weak growth but positive markets
In 2009, the global economy showed its weakest growth for quite some time. The sharpest decline in economic activity came at the end of 2008 and in early 2009. Since then, there has been a certain degree of stabilisation. However, the activity level remains low as can be seen in industry's low capacity utilisation, for example. But the financial markets seem to have accepted that the economy has bottomed out for this cycle and, combined with low interest rates, this caused most asset categories to generate a positive total yield in 2009. This applies in particular to the higher risk assets that developed most negatively in 2008.

In the autumn of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, AMF increased the equity portion of its investments to at most slightly above 35 per cent. Later in the year, AMF gradually sold off equities due to continued economic uncertainty. On  December 31, 2009, the equity portion was 32,5 percent (34.5).
 
Long-term market interest rates rose over the year. At the same time, credit spreads converged, returning to more normal levels, partly due to measures by the central banks and government guarantees. This has resulted in a high return on credit-based securities. AMF's fixed-interest portfolio has shown very strong results due to the high proportion of credit-based securities and despite rising interest rates. The return on the fixed-interest portfolio was 1.4 percent above its comparison index for the year. In addition, AMF's management of currency hedging for the portfolio has contributed positively to the return by 0.9 percentage points (0.9).
 
During the year, AMF acquired a property in central Stockholm and sold a smaller property in Gothenburg. The vacancy rate for AMF's properties remained low, with the exception of the Salénhuset building in central Stockholm and an office building in the Södermalm district of the city, which are both being remodelled.
 
The total return on investment assets amounted to SEK 31.9 billion (neg.: 18.1), corresponding to a total return of 12.6 percent (neg.: 6.6). Consequently, the average total return for the past five, ten, fifteen and twenty years amounts to 7.0, 4.9, 9.9 and 10.0 percent respectively.