• 480 days Will The ECB Continue To Hike Rates?
  • 480 days Forbes: Aramco Remains Largest Company In The Middle East
  • 482 days Caltech Scientists Succesfully Beam Back Solar Power From Space
  • 882 days Could Crypto Overtake Traditional Investment?
  • 887 days Americans Still Quitting Jobs At Record Pace
  • 889 days FinTech Startups Tapping VC Money for ‘Immigrant Banking’
  • 892 days Is The Dollar Too Strong?
  • 892 days Big Tech Disappoints Investors on Earnings Calls
  • 893 days Fear And Celebration On Twitter as Musk Takes The Reins
  • 895 days China Is Quietly Trying To Distance Itself From Russia
  • 895 days Tech and Internet Giants’ Earnings In Focus After Netflix’s Stinker
  • 899 days Crypto Investors Won Big In 2021
  • 899 days The ‘Metaverse’ Economy Could be Worth $13 Trillion By 2030
  • 900 days Food Prices Are Skyrocketing As Putin’s War Persists
  • 902 days Pentagon Resignations Illustrate Our ‘Commercial’ Defense Dilemma
  • 903 days US Banks Shrug off Nearly $15 Billion In Russian Write-Offs
  • 906 days Cannabis Stocks in Holding Pattern Despite Positive Momentum
  • 907 days Is Musk A Bastion Of Free Speech Or Will His Absolutist Stance Backfire?
  • 907 days Two ETFs That Could Hedge Against Extreme Market Volatility
  • 909 days Are NFTs About To Take Over Gaming?
What Does Tesla's Million-Mile Battery Mean For Green Energy?

What Does Tesla's Million-Mile Battery Mean For Green Energy?

Tesla’s million-mile electric vehicle battery…

Energy CEOs See Big Payouts Despite Oil Price Crash

Energy CEOs See Big Payouts Despite Oil Price Crash

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit…

  1. Home
  2. Investing
  3. Other

World's Largest Wealth Fund Sees Best Quarter Ever

Market

The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund—Norway’s US$1-trillion fund that has amassed its wealth from oil—earned US$84 billion in Q1 in the “strongest quarter ever”, boosted by technology and oil and gas stocks.

The Government Pension Fund Global, as the so-called ‘oil fund’ is officially known, said in its Q1 quarterly report on Friday that it returned 9.1 percent, or US$84.16 billion (738 billion Norwegian crowns), in the first quarter of 2019.

In equity investments, which accounted for 69.2 percent of the fund at the end of Q1, technology stocks were the top performers with a 17.6-percent return, followed by oil and gas and industrials, which both returned 14.1 percent.

“The strong performance by oil and gas stocks was boosted by higher oil prices, due partly to the prospect of production cuts from OPEC and Russia and decreased output in Venezuela due to political unrest,” the fund’s report reads.

“This is the fund’s best quarterly return measured in kroner ever. As a major equity investor we must be prepared for large fluctuations in the fund’s market value in line with developments in global stock markets,” said Yngve Slyngstad, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. Related: Are Gold Stocks Preparing For A Winter Rally?

The fund—created three decades ago to safeguard and manage Norway’s oil wealth for future generations—made headlines earlier this year, when the government proposed that the fund divest from oil and gas exploration companies.

The move by the Norwegian government and the fund comes at a time when investors are increasingly pressing major oil companies to start taking climate change seriously and to prepare their business portfolios for a world of peak oil demand, whenever that may come.

Norway, however, claims that its decision is motivated by financial reasons, with the country aiming to cut exposure to the oil price risk. More importantly, the fund will not be divesting from any of the Big Oil firms.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Safehaven.com:

Back to homepage

Leave a comment

Leave a comment