The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System earned a 4.8-per-cent return and bought an additional $1-billion in Canadian stocks in the first half of the year as the pension fund looks to add to its domestic investments. The Globe's James Bradshaw writes that OMERS posted positive returns from each of its asset classes up to June 30, with publicly traded equities yielding the strongest gains at 12.2 per cent. The Toronto-based fund chose to "shore up" its position as a shareholder in a number of prominent Canadian companies that included banks, insurers and other "counterparties" with which OMERS does business, chief executive officer Blake Hutcheson told The Globe. "We believe in the market, we believe in these assets and we believe in the strategic positioning of owning pieces of the companies that are part of our success in other ways," he said. More broadly, "We believe in the direction of travel for Canada." Mr. Hutcheson said in April that OMERS plans to add $10-billion in new investments in Canada to its portfolio over the next five years. Major domestic pension funds have been under pressure from political and business leaders to invest more at home.