The Exchange Fund, Hong Kong's war chest to defend the local currency, is expected to report "a significant loss" for the first half of 2022, according to a profit warning issued on Tuesday.
"In the first half of this year, prices nosedived across almost all types of asset, leaving investors with no real options for taking shelter," said Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) chief executive Eddie Yue Wai-man in a statement posted on the de facto central bank's website.
"Caught in this perfect storm, the Exchange Fund, as with other investors, could not stay totally unscathed. We expect quite a significant loss in the first half of the year."
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The HKMA, which manages the HK$4.6 trillion (US$586.14 billion) Exchange Fund, is expected to announce the investment results later this week.
Back in April, Yue also issued a profit warning for the Exchange Fund's first-quarter results, predicting that the fund would face a "triple-whammy" of equity, bond and foreign exchange valuations falling at the same time if the US were to speed up its interest-rate increases.
The fund lost HK$55 billion from investments in the first quarter, its third-biggest loss in the 18 years since it began reporting its quarterly performance.
In Tuesday's statement Yue said Hong Kong is facing "a more prolonged and destructive storm that swept across the global financial markets in the first half of this year, with all asset classes being affected, presenting a daunting challenge for the Exchange Fund."
While the Exchange Fund suffered a rare occurrence of "equities down, bonds down" in the first three months of the year, the second quarter saw the already battered markets hit by a "perfect storm", he said.
The onslaught consisted mainly of geopolitical tensions disrupting the supply of energy and food, and central banks tightening monetary policy to curb soaring inflation. Consumer prices rose 9.1 per cent in the US in June from a year ago, the most in four decades.
The S&P 500 Index fell by 16.4 per cent in the second quarter, after a drop of 4.9 per cent in the first.
"In summary, multiple asset classes recorded a double-digit price fall in the first half of the year, which was quite rare over many decades," Yue said.