Norway’s giant wealth fund earns $111bn in first half

OSLO: Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s biggest, said Wednesday it earned more than $100 billion in the first half of the year thanks to a soaring stock market — and a small assist from an erroneous purchase that luckily turned into a gain.

The oil-rich country launched the fund in the 1990s to protect the economy from the volatility of crude prices and finance the future needs of Norway’s generous welfare state.

Its value reached 11.7 trillion Norwegian kroner ($1.3 trillion, 1.1 trillion euros) at the end of June, with three-quarters of its investment in global equities.