Norway’s gigantic sovereign wealth fund on Tuesday reported a third-quarter profit of $835 billion Norwegian kroner ($76.3 billion)

Norway’s gigantic sovereign wealth fund on Tuesday reported a third-quarter profit of $835 billion Norwegian kroner ($76.3 billion).

The fund attributed its performance to a stock market boost from falling interest rates as detailed in a report by CNBC.

The so-called Government Pension Fund Global, one of the world’s largest investors, said it had a value of 18.870 trillion kroner at the end of September.

Its overall return for the quarter was 4.4 per cent, which was 0.1 percentage points lower than the return on its benchmark 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 pretty significant impact” on the fund’s third-quarter results.

“It’s been quite an eventful quarter if you think about it.

It started with a lot of volatility throughout summer in July and into August and then you had the speculation of a soft landing and whether the Fed would cut,” Grande told CNBC in an exclusive conversation on October 22.

The CNBC report further elaborated that, equities, which accounted for 71.4 per cent of the fund in the third quarter, notched a return of 4.5 per cent.

The return on the fixed-income investments, which account for 26.8 per cent of the fund’s assets, stood at 4.2 per cent over the period.

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, was established in the 1990s to invest the surplus revenues of the country’s oil and gas sector.

To date, the fund has put money in more than 8,760 companies in 71 countries around the world.

Future outlook of the economy

As the world grapples with economic challenges such as inflation and geopolitical tensions, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund remains well-positioned to weather these storms.

Its robust investment strategy and commitment to diversification will likely serve it well in the coming quarters.

On the question on the outlook for tech stocks over the coming months, NBIM’s Grande stated,  “that’s a difficult question, right? Because tech has had such a phenomenal ride on the back of all the hype, let’s call it hype, about AI.”

“So, I think it’s a situation where you need to be maybe a little bit careful,” he stated further.