The Norwegian Oil Fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, has appreciated significantly in the first half of the year. Driven by strong stock markets, the fund generated a return of 10 percent or around 1.5 trillion Norwegian kroner – the equivalent of more than 130 billion euros. This emerges from the semi-annual report of the so-called pension fund abroad, which fund boss Nicolai Tangen and his deputy Trond Grande presented at a press conference on Wednesday.
The volume of the fund rose by June 30 by almost 2.9 trillion crowns to 15.3 trillion crowns (1.34 trillion euros). On the one hand, this was due to the high yield, but on the other hand, it was also due to the weaker krona and transfers from the Norwegian government.
In the same period of the previous year, the oil fund had suffered heavy losses due to the unrest on the stock markets surrounding the Ukraine war and fears of inflation. At that time, the return was minus 14 percent – according to central bank information, the shares in technology groups that had fallen at the time had a particularly negative effect. Tangen said that the shares in US technology groups in particular had yielded returns, especially the papers from Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta and Amazon.
Norway’s oil fund acts as insurance for future generations when oil can no longer be drilled. It is fed with the income from Norwegian oil and gas production, managed by the central bank on behalf of the Ministry of Finance and invests in around 9,200 companies worldwide, including corporations such as Apple, Nestlé, Microsoft and Samsung.
