The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, Norway’s, lost about 1.68 trillion crowns (about 170 billion euros, US $ 173 billion) in the first half, weighed down by technology stocks especially, the Bank of Norway.
Fueled by Norwegian state oil revenues, the fund posted a negative return of 14.4% in the first six months of the year. Its value fell to 11.65 billion crowns at the end of June.
“The market was affected by rising rates, high inflation and the war in Europe”, explained the head of the fund, Nicolai Tangen, in a statement.
Mainly responsible for this trend are investments in shares, which caused a loss of 17%, an even more pronounced decline in the technology sector (-28%). The only exception was energy values, which were up 13%.
Equities represented 68.5% of the portfolio at the end of June: the Norwegian fund is present in the capital of some 9,300 companies and controls around 1.3% of the global market capitalization.
On Wednesday, according to the counter on the Norwegian central bank’s website (which is updated live), the fund was worth more than 12.3 billion crowns.
Source: Gestion
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