NORWAY'S FUND: $1 TLN + $20 BLN

NORWAY'S FUND - The Government Pension Fund Global returned 1.8 percent, or 167 billion kroner, in the second quarter of 2018.

Equity investments returned 2.7 percent. Unlisted real estate investments returned 1.9 percent, and fixed-income investments 0.0 percent. The overall return on the fund was 0.2 percentage point lower than the return on the benchmark index.

Global stock markets had a positive development in the second quarter and thereby reversed the negative development at the beginning of the year.

"North American and European stocks had a positive development in the quarter despite the prospect of increased trade barriers. This made a positive contribution to the fund's return," says Trond Grande, Deputy CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management.

The krone depreciated against the US dollar during the quarter, and contributed to increasing the value of the fund by 47 billion kroner. In the second quarter, 2 billion kroner was withdrawn from the fund.

"In June, the fund had its first inflow since 2015. For the quarter as a whole we still had outflow," says Grande.

The fund had a market value of 8,337 billion kroner as at 30 June 2018 and was invested 66.8 percent in equities, 2.6 percent in unlisted real estate and 30.6 percent in fixed income.

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Earlier:

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2018, August, 15, 10:35:00 NORWAY'S KEY PRIORITY BLOOMBERG - The Norwegian government in June made its first deposit into its wealth fund since the end of 2015. Now that the economy is in full recovery and the labor market is tightening, winding down fiscal stimulus is a key priority in next year’s budget, the prime minister said in an interview in Arendal, on Norway’s southern coast.

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