(MENAFN) The largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, Norway's, suffered a record loss of $174 billion in the first half of 2022 as stocks and bonds were rocked by concerns about a global recession and escalating price inflation.
Despite being minus 14.4% for the January–June period, the $1.3 trillion fund's return on investments was nevertheless 1.14 percentage points more than the return on its benchmark index.
The decrease was the most in any six-month period in the fund's 26-year existence, driven by a 28 percent decline in the value of its technology companies, but some losses have since been recovered as markets turned positive in July and August.
“The market has been characterized by rising interest rates, high inflation, and war in Europe,” Chief Executive Nicolai Tangen of Norges Bank Investment Management, which operates the fund, stated in an announcement.
Tangen, who last year produced the fund's second-highest profit on record, has frequently forewarned of impending market weakness and the consequent decline of the fund, which is only permitted to slightly diverge from its benchmark indices.
“This is well within what one can expect,” Tangen asserted of the first-half loss.
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