The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund—Norway’s US$1-trillion fund that has amassed its wealth from oil—earned US$84 billion in Q1 in the “strongest quarter ever”, boosted by technology and oil and gas stocks. The Government Pension Fund Global, as the so-called ‘oil fund’ is officially known, said in its Q1 quarterly report on Friday that it returned 9.1 percent, or US$84.16 billion (738 billion Norwegian crowns), in the first quarter of 2019. In equity investments, which accounted for 69.2 percent of the fund at the end of Q1, technology stocks were the top performers with a 17.6-percent return, followed by oil and gas and industrials, which both returned 14.1 percent. “The strong performance by oil and gas stocks was boosted by higher oil prices, due partly to the prospect of production cuts from OPEC and Russia and decreased output in Venezuela due to political unrest,” the fund’s report reads. “This […]