Bonds, not equities, did the damage as the fund’s fixed-income book returned minus 3.5%
The Government Pension Fund Global, the world’s largest single investor, returned minus 0.5 percent in the third quarter of 2026 and recorded an accounting loss of US$29.7bn.
Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages the US$2.3tn fund, published the results on Thursday.
Fixed-income investments returned minus 3.5 percent and equities returned 0.5 percent.
Unlisted real estate returned 0.4 percent and unlisted renewable energy infrastructure returned 7.5 percent, according to the NBIM release.
“The fund’s return was close to flat, ending slightly negative as rising interest rates led to weaker results on our fixed-income investments,” said Trond Grande, deputy CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management in Oslo, in the fund’s statement.
The statement said equity returns came in near zero, with energy companies gaining the most while utilities and real estate fell.
According to Reuters, the fund’s value fell by 670bn kroner (approximately US$71.6bn) to 22.01tn kroner, or approximately US$2.35tn, on September 30.
A stronger krone reduced the value by 472bn kroner (approximately US$50.4bn), and 80bn kroner, approximately US$8.5bn, was added after management costs.
The quarterly return sat 0.18 percentage points below the benchmark index set by Norway’s finance ministry.
Government bond yields climbed over the three months to September as concerns about inflation and government debt levels mounted, CNBC reported.
NBIM attributed the rise to rate increases by several central banks, among them the US Federal Reserve.
Fixed income accounted for 25.8 percent of the fund’s overall holdings in the period, per Reuters.
According to CNBC, around 70 percent of that portfolio sits in government bonds and the remainder in corporate debt, spread across 1,664 bonds in 51 countries.
Equities accounted for 72 percent of the fund’s investments, held in roughly 7,100 companies, and the fund owns on average 1.5 percent of all listed companies globally, Reuters reported.
The technology sector made up 23 percent of total holdings as of June 30, citing fund data.
“We have been public that we have been a little bit cautious on the equity market overall and a little bit cautious on some of the bigger technology names,” Grande told Reuters after the results. “In the bigger scheme of things, that’s just smaller underweights.”
NBIM recommended in a letter to Norway’s Ministry of Finance in early September that it be permitted to cut the share of government bonds in its benchmark bond index from 70 percent to 50 percent.
US government bonds would fall from 34.1 percent to 21.9 percent of the bond index, while non-government US fixed income, such as corporate bonds, would rise from 16.2 percent to 27.6 percent, CNBC reported.
Norges Bank governor Ida Wolden Bache and NBIM chief executive Nicolai Tangen wrote that a 50 percent government share would be sufficient to cover the fund’s liquidity needs, including in periods of turbulence in financial markets.
NBIM posted a record first-half profit of approximately US$185bn in August.
“For sure, we should not be expecting the same kind of returns going forward as we’ve seen over the last six months,” Tangen told CNBC at the time.
