If anyone needs any proof of how the landscape of investment has changed as a result of a handful of technology companies over the past decade, take a look at the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund (SWF).
SWFs typically take a more conservative investment approach, more like pension funds, as they represent crown wealth rather than simply “other people’s money.” Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) is no different — or wasn’t in the past.
But things have changed in the past couple of years.
We’ve all witnessed the rise of the mega-cap stock. The Magnificent Seven of technology stocks have ridden the wave of interest in artificial intelligence development to become companies with valuations into the hundreds of billions of dollars — in some cases trillions of dollars.
These riskier spectrum assets have become the foundation of investment at NBIM in the past couple of years. Let’s look at how things have changed over the past decade.
NBIM in 2014
A decade ago, NBIM was worth $1.08 trillion and took a much more conservative approach to investment.
In 2014 the Norwegian fund allotted $665.3 billion to equity markets, or 61.8% of its total investments, while 36.5% of investments were allotted to bonds — mostly the government bonds of the U.S., Japan, Germany and the U.K.. The rest of its holdings were scattered ...