As the world passed through a turbulent quarter, Norway’s US$1.7 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, reported a significant loss, primarily from a tech-stock downturn. Still, the performance of the fund is 0.16 percentage point higher than its benchmark.
According to the bank’s statement, its value in this year’s first quarter has dropped by 0.6%, or about US$40 billion. The bank’s investment on stock recorded a loss of 1.6%, but the investment on fixed-income managed to gain 1.6% in the quarter.
Nicolai Tangen, the investment bank’s CEO, stated that the main reason for this negative return is due to the tech sector as companies lost their value during the tech rout. He also mentioned the significant market fluctuations in the first three months of this year.
Nonetheless, the investment bank could face a much worse situation in the second quarter. The report shows that the fund lost about US$200 million in just a few days after the U.S. President Donald announced a series of tariffs on April 2, two days after the second quarter began.
Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) uses a benchmark index consisting of 70% equities and 30% fixed income to manage the Government Pension Fund Global.
