Al-Marsad newspaper: Norway’s largest sovereign wealth fund in the world said today, Wednesday, that it incurred a loss of 1.68 trillion Norwegian crowns (174 billion dollars) in the first half of the year, at a time when stocks and bonds were affected by global recession fears and the outbreak of price inflation.
“The market has been marked by high interest rates, inflation and war in Europe,” CEO Nikolai Tangin of Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages the fund, said in a statement.
“Tech stocks have done particularly badly with a negative 28% return,” he added.
Established in 1996, the fund invests proceeds from the Norwegian oil and gas sector, and owns stakes in more than 9,300 companies globally, and 1.3% of all listed shares.
The fund’s investment return for the first six months of the year is $1.3 trillion, roughly the size of Mexico’s economy, the world’s 16th largest, by some measures.
All sectors in which the fund invests recorded negative returns in the first half, with the exception of energy, where sector returns were 13% with higher prices after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.