The city’s Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) turned the corner in the third quarter, helped by monetary easing in the United States last month that boosted stock markets worldwide.

The 443 retirement funds, which cover 2.5 million employees in Hong Kong, recorded an average 4.66 per cent return in July-September, recovering from a loss of 3.64 per cent in the second quarter, according to data provider Lipper, a Thomson Reuters company. Third-quarter MPF average returns, however, fared worse than the Hang Seng Index, which gained 7.2 per cent.