The world's largest sovereign wealth fund announced a quarterly profit of $76 billion
Norway's sovereign wealth fund reported a profit of NOK 835 billion ($76.3 billion) for the third quarter on Tuesday, citing a boost from lower interest rates that buoyed stock markets.
One of the world's largest investors, the so-called Government Pension Fund Global, said the fund's asset value stood at NOK 18.870 trillion as of the end of September.
The fund's overall return for the quarter was 4.4%, 0.1 percentage point lower than the return of the benchmark index set by Norway's Ministry of Finance. The benchmark index by which the fund measures itself is based on the FTSE Global All Cap index and the Bloomberg Barclays fixed income index.
Trond Grande, deputy CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), which manages the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, said recent changes in monetary policy had a "quite substantial impact" on the fund's third-quarter performance.
"If you think about it, it's been a very eventful quarter," Grande told CNBC on Tuesday. "There was a lot of market volatility throughout the summer from July to August, and then speculation started about whether there would be a soft landing for the economy and whether the Federal Reserve would cut rates."
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"I think what you see in our numbers is that a rising tide lifts all boats, right? So, you see a general increase in stock markets on the back of low interest rates."
Not long before, Norges Bank Investment Management warned that increased uncertainty and a "completely different geopolitical situation" mean that global stock markets face more risks.
Equity investments accounted for 71.4% of the fund's total investments in the third quarter, with a return of 4.5%. Fixed income investments accounted for 26.8% of the fund's assets, with a return of 4.2% for the same period.
Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, was established in the 1990s to invest the surplus income from the country's oil and gas industry. To date, the fund has invested in more than 8,760 companies in 71 countries worldwide.**Technology Stock Warning**
A global easing cycle is currently underway, with many high-income countries experiencing a decline in inflation, leading major central banks to take measures to soften their aggressive monetary policy stances.
The Federal Reserve significantly cut interest rates by 0.5 percentage points last month. The Bank of England lowered interest rates for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic in August, and the European Central Bank took action last week for the third rate cut this year.
However, the Bank of Japan maintained interest rates unchanged last month, continuing to cautiously advance the normalization of monetary policy. In the process of the global shift towards easing monetary policies, the Bank of Japan is seen as an outlier.
When asked about the prospects of technology stocks in the coming months, Grande from Norges Bank Investment Management said, "It's a difficult question to answer, isn't it? Because behind all the hype about artificial intelligence (let's call it hype for now), technology has made such astonishing progress."
"So, I think this is a situation where you might need to be a bit cautious," he added.
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