{"id":421628,"date":"2020-10-10T03:24:35","date_gmt":"2020-10-10T07:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/?p=421628"},"modified":"2020-09-07T21:40:06","modified_gmt":"2020-09-08T01:40:06","slug":"how-much-stock-does-norway-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/investing\/how-much-stock-does-norway-own","title":{"rendered":"How Much Stock Does Norway Own?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The northern landscapes of Norway are one of the world\u2019s most pristine, beautiful places. Its scenery is only matched by its citizens&#8217; standard of living, among the highest on the planet.<\/p>\n<p>Some of this is attributable to the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund so the question is how much stock does Norway own?<\/p>\n<h2>Norway Sovereign Wealth Fund 101<\/h2>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swfinstitute.org\/news\/77731\/extra-200-billion-norway-sovereign-wealth-fund-has-best-year-ever\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SWFI<\/a>, the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, Norway\u2019s wealth fund is the world\u2019s largest.<\/p>\n<p><strong>If you take into account total accumulated assets, Norway\u2019s fund comes in first place, followed by China Investment Corporation (CIC) in second and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) in third.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund (NSWF) generates revenue within the gas and oil industries. <strong>The fund\u2019s worth is around 3x that of the country\u2019s GDP and is a crucial portion of Norway\u2019s finances overall.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The NSWF owns an average of 1.5% of all the equities listed in the world.<\/strong> By the end of 2019, the NSWF\u2019s annual return was an average of 6.1% overall since the country started the fund. The fund\u2019s 15% loss in Q1 2020 was the biggest it ever experienced.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"margin: 0 auto; border: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/financhill.com\/widget\/stock-score\/RDS.A\" width=\"720\" height=\"500\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Since the plummet, the wealth fund has purchased vast amounts of shares in companies most analysts and virtually every other investor might deem incredibly inappropriate for the average investor \u2013 but Norway is not your average investor.<\/p>\n<p>Stocks such as <strong>Carnival Corp (<a href=\"https:\/\/financhill.com\/search\/charts\/CCL\">CCL<\/a>)<\/strong> and <strong>Royal Dutch Shell (<a href=\"https:\/\/financhill.com\/search\/charts\/RDS.A\">RDS.A<\/a>)<\/strong> suffered blunt force trauma in the aftermath of March\u2019s sharp market decline, but these are the stocks Norway has \u201cstocked\u201d up on \u2013 okay, pun intended.<\/p>\n<p>The fund also picked up shares of Australia\u2019s leading mining company, <strong>BHP Group (<a href=\"https:\/\/financhill.com\/search\/charts\/BHP\">BHP<\/a>)<\/strong>, and doubled its shares of Royal Dutch Shell.<\/p>\n<h2>How Much is Norway\u2019s Sovereign Wealth Fund Worth?<\/h2>\n<p>Norway\u2019s Sovereign Wealth Fund is a huge pension fund for its citizens. August\u2019s reports sizing up the fund\u2019s Q1 and Q2 performance for 2020 showed its worst return in history \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelocal.no\/20160309\/weakest-return-for-norways-wealth-fund-in-years\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">worse than 2015\u2019s drop<\/a> and a bubble-burster after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2020\/02\/27\/norway-wealth-fund-earned-a-record-180-billion-in-2019.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2019\u2019s record highs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Incredible <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ai-cio.com\/news\/short-term-losses-dent-norways-long-term-returns\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fluctuations in the equity markets<\/a> are to blame, said a spokesperson for the fund.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"margin: 0 auto; border: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/financhill.com\/widget\/charts\/SPY\" width=\"720\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, the plummet was cushioned by a huge response in financial policies. The fund\u2019s worth at Q2 end was 10.4 trillion kroner ($1.16 trillion USD). <strong>Equity investments were nearly 70% with fixed income coming in at 27.6% and unlisted real estate at 2.8%.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Overall, the fund\u2019s equity investments dropped by nearly 7% and unlisted real estate investments fell by 1.6% in the first six months of 2020. The fund\u2019s fixed income investments, however, rose by over 5%.<\/p>\n<h2>How Much Stock Does Norway Own?<\/h2>\n<p>In June 2019, the country\u2019s fund felt a boost thanks to choppy waters in the stocks and bonds seas. The fund saw an overall return of 3% (256 billion kroner or $28.5 billion USD). By the end of June 2019, Norway\u2019s Sovereign Wealth Fund was worth 9.162 billion kroner ($1.02 trillion USD).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"margin: 0 auto; border: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/financhill.com\/widget\/charts\/MSFT\" width=\"720\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>At the time, stocks made up 69.3%, with the greatest returns coming from such shares as <a href=\"https:\/\/financhill.com\/search\/fundamentals\/MSFT\">Microsoft<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/financhill.com\/search\/fundamentals\/FB\">Facebook<\/a>, and the Nestle chocolate company. The heaviest drags included <a href=\"https:\/\/financhill.com\/search\/fundamentals\/GOOGL\">Alphabet<\/a>, Google\u2019s parent company, and the computer processor giant, Intel.<\/p>\n<p>Even though Q2 of 2019 was considered volatile, every equity sector of the fund made giant strides aside from the fund\u2019s oil and fuel holdings.<\/p>\n<h2>What is Norway\u2019s Sovereign Wealth Fund Used For?<\/h2>\n<p>Known officially as the Government Pension Fund, Norway\u2019s Sovereign Wealth Fund is worth around $1 trillion USD and is comprised of various holdings and investments around the world.<\/p>\n<p>A neat thing about the wealth fund \u2013 and Norwegians in general \u2013 is its ethical investing practices. For instance, the fund has no holdings in tobacco \u2013 the fund also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ipe.com\/norways-swf-dumps-139m-of-cannabis-stocks-after-criticism\/10031409.article\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">cut ties with the cannabis industry in 2019<\/a>. <strong>The fund does, however, have over $37 billion USD in oil with companies such as BP and Shell.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The monies used to finance the fund are derived from the country\u2019s own oil proceeds. The country has stated, however, that it would like to not be so reliant on the price of oil and is liquidating some of those oil and gas shares.<\/p>\n<p>But the country\u2019s Central Bank has also mentioned these sales aren\u2019t due to environmental pressure, but rather to diversify the fund\u2019s portfolio to strengthen it for the country\u2019s future generations. <strong>The fund\u2019s main purpose is much the same as United States\u2019 Social Security \u2013 to maintain the quality of life for all citizens.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>How Many Norwegians Are Millionaires?<\/h2>\n<p>Norway has one of the world\u2019s greatest qualities of life \u2013 high standards of living and a rich economy is necessary to make that happen.<\/p>\n<p>The country\u2019s economy is fueled by exports of oil and fuel which increases the country\u2019s efficiency and stability \u2013 but it\u2019s also made Norway one of the world\u2019s richest countries. Petroleum added to the nation\u2019s wealth in the 70s and its large seafood, lumber, and hydro-power reserves add to its diversity.<\/p>\n<p>Compared to other countries,<strong> Norway\u2019s unemployment rate is extremely low making for an incredibly productive nation.<\/strong> <strong>The combination of wealth and such high levels of productivity has enabled the country to offer its citizens free healthcare, too.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oslo offers employment in rich sectors, such as technology, architecture, and telecommunications. Poverty is well below the world average and average wages are well above. The line between rich and poor is noticeably nearly non-existent.<\/p>\n<p>In a word \u2013 Norwegians are simply wealthy. They have the lowest unemployment rate in the world which has helped shape Norwegian society. The younger generations, for instance, travel more than their older counterparts did at their age \u2013 and the younger set also tends to spend a lot of time and money out socializing. They aren\u2019t prone to living the \u201csimple\u201d life by any means.<\/p>\n<p>The nationwide population is about 5 million which is quite small compared to other countries, such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>United States \u2013 340 million<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>United Kingdom \u2013 64 million<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Sweden \u2013 9.5 million<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Yet the country has a much higher concentration of wealth \u2013 as of 2018, about <a href=\"https:\/\/norwaytoday.info\/finance\/nearly-170000-dollar-millionaires-norway\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">170,000 Norwegians were considered millionaires<\/a> by USD standards.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s clear that Norway\u2019s high quality of life and thoughtful governance has created an extremely literate, well-educated, and wealthy population.<\/p>\n<p>Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/financhill\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Financhill<\/a> for <a href=\"https:\/\/financhill.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">more information<\/a> just like this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The northern landscapes of Norway are one of the world\u2019s most pristine, beautiful places. Its scenery is only matched by its citizens&#8217; standard of living, among the highest on the planet. Some of this is attributable to the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund so the question is how much stock does Norway own? Norway Sovereign Wealth [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421629,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-421628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/how-much-stock-does-norway-own.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9czeV-1LGs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421628"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421634,"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421628\/revisions\/421634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}