Exploring Norway’s sprawling sovereign wealth fund

Norway now has a wealth fund worth $290k+ for every citizen of the country

4/19/24 10:50AM

Norway’s nest egg

The value of Norway's sovereign wealth fund rose 6.3% last quarter, adding a whopping $110 billion to the country’s stockpile despite technically falling just shy of its target benchmark return.

What started as the Norwegian government’s rainy day fund — somewhere to put its excess oil revenues in the 1990s — has become the largest investor on the planet. Today, 71% of its investment portfolio is in equities: a total of $1.1 trillion spread across more than 8,800 companies in 65 countries. Mirroring a diversified market index due to its sheer size, the fund has slices of every major sector. Visualized above are ~4,900 of the fund's equity investments: the smallest dots in the chart, the ones that you can barely see, represent $10 million stakes in individual companies.

Keeping it public

But, while its equities portfolio returned a respectable 9% in Q1, its fixed income and unlisted real estate investments saw losses, pulling down the overall return. Indeed, in the past 2 decades, the fund's equity investments have grown some 21x in value — and its success in public stocks is one reason why the Norwegian government last week confirmed it wants nothing to do with private equity, even as other institutional investors increase their exposure to the asset class.

In case managing this behemoth portfolio wasn't enough, you can catch the fund's chief hosting his podcast, where he interviews the likes of Elon Musk and Satya Nadella — two CEOs of companies that the fund owns a large slice of.

Slippery slope: When you're managing a pot of $1.6 trillion, even a tiny Excel error can result in a $92 million miscalculation.

Tasha Matsumoto, Luke Kawa

10/10/25

Stocks hammered by tariff turmoil

A Truth Social post from President Trump threatening a “massive increase” on tariffs sent stocks into their steepest drop-off since April.

J. Edward Moreno

10/10/25

Lilly Endowment unloads about $600 million in Eli Lilly stock during early October

The nonprofit still owns about 10% of the company, a stake now worth about $80.9 billion.

Pharmaceutical Company Eli Lilly Headquarters

Max Knoblauch10/10/25

Global automakers sink as Trump implies the trade war is heating back up

Shares of several major automakers with large footprints in China sank on Friday following President Trump’s threats to massively increase tariffs on goods from China in response to what he called “hostile” export controls.

Chinese EV titans like BYD, Nio, and XPeng plunged after Trump’s Truth Social post, along with automakers like Tesla and Stellantis that heavily rely on revenue from sales in the country.

EV makers like Rivian and Lucid, which source raw materials and or batteries from China, were also down following the post.

The move comes at a rocky time for US automakers, with the end of the EV tax credit expected to heavily ding sales for the rest of the year.

Matt Phillips10/10/25

Rare earth stocks spike after Trump says China should not be allowed to hold the world “captive” on rare earths

Shares of rare earth metal producers soared Friday after the president published a Truth Social statement decrying what he describes as Chinese efforts to control the pipeline of the sought-after minerals.

Companies such as MP Materials — which the US government recently took a stake in — USA Rare Earth, and Critical Metals jumped, suggesting investor bets that the the administration could play a bigger role in ensuring US access to rare earths.

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

Luke Kawa10/10/25

US stocks sink after Trump says he’s considering a “massive increase” of tariffs on Chinese imports

More tariffs might be back on the menu.

US stocks reversed lower after US President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post that he is considering a “massive increase” on tariffs of Chinese imports.

Trump said he’s mulling higher levies as well as “many other countermeasures” because of “the hostile ‘order’ that they have just put out” restricting the export of rare earth metals. He also seemingly canceled his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea in two weeks, saying “now there seems to be no reason to do so.”

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF, Invesco QQQ Trust, and iShares Russell 2000 ETF all gave up early gains to fall more than 1%. A basket of stocks compiled by Goldman Sachs of US companies that have significant revenue exposure to China is off more than 2%.

Wafer fab equipment stocks Lam Research, Applied Materials, and KLA Corp, which all count China as their top market, are underperforming, as is iPhone seller Apple.

Chip stocks Advanced Micro Devices, Intel, Broadcom, and Nvidia are all getting hit on the news, as rare earths are needed components for semiconductor production. For Tesla, it’s a similar story given its footprint in China and the importance of rare earths for EVs.

There’s also a lot of plain old dumping of recent winners.

Super Micro Computer, Coinbase, and Robinhood Markets are among the biggest laggards since Trump’s post as investors cut risk.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

The rare earth curbs are far from the only recent example of China stepping up its defense of domestic industry and resources. Qualcomm is the subject of an antitrust investigation, stringent checks of semiconductor shipments are reportedly in place as officials look to keep Nvidia’s chips from entering the country, and separate reporting indicates that US ships will be charged an escalating fee for docking at Chinese ports.