By Gwladys Fouche
OSLO (Reuters) -Norway’s $1.8 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, posted a profit of 835 billion crowns ($76.41 billion) in the third quarter as falling interest rates lifted stock markets, it said on Tuesday.
The fund’s return on investment was 4.4% for the July-September period, 0.1 percentage points weaker than the return on its benchmark index.
“We had a positive return across all our investment areas,” Deputy CEO Trond Grande said in a statement.
“Falling interest rates led to a broad rise in the stock market,” he added.
Equities – accounting for 71.4% of its value in the quarter – recorded a 4.5% return. Fixed-income investments, which account for 26.8% of its assets, meanwhile returned 4.2%.
($1 = 10.9278 Norwegian crowns)
(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Terje Solsvik)
