Norway Government Forces Sovereign Wealth Fund To Buy $100 Billion More In Stocks “To Safeguard The Country’s Riches”
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Aug 22, 2017
As we reported late last year, the Norwegian government ordered its Sovereign Wealth Fund to increase its equity allocation to 70% to try and paper over what’s expected to be a 70 billion kroner ($11.1 billion) drawdown – the first in the fund’s history.
That money was needed to plug a budget hole created by falling oil prices, and it seems the brilliant minds at the Norwegian Ministry of Finance and the Norges Bank figured they could easily recoup the fund’s losses by upping its risk exposure. Indeed, they’ve already raised the fund’s expected average annual real return to 2.5 percent over 10 years and to 3.5 percent over 30 years, compared with 2.1 percent and 2.6 percent previously.
Eight months later, the MoF is still planning to make the shift, which would result in it buying about $100 billion in global stocks, though prices have risen considerably in the interim. Despite the fund’s rush to raise its 10-year earnings forecast, fund officials said worries about a near-term market slump played “little part” in their investing plans,” according to Bloomberg.
The Rest…HERE
