Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, lost 278 billion Norwegian crowns — about $29.71 billion — in the third quarter of 2026, Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), which runs the fund, said on Thursday, according to Reuters.

Source: Reuters

Yaani, in easier terms: a loss of roughly $30 billion is about ₹2.8 lakh crore — a paper loss for the quarter, on a fund still worth about $2.35 trillion (22.014 trillion crowns at the end of September).

The fund's overall return was minus 0.5% for the quarter. Its fixed-income (bond) investments returned minus 3.5%, hit by a global selloff in government bonds as major central banks raised or held interest rates high against persistent inflation, while its equities returned about 0.5%, with energy companies rising the most and interest-rate-sensitive sectors such as utilities and real estate falling, NBIM said.

"The fund's return was close to flat, ending slightly negative as rising interest rates led to weaker results on our fixed-income investments," deputy chief executive Trond Grande said in the statement announcing the results.

Source: NBIM statement via The Daily Energy

Built from Norway's oil and gas revenues, the fund held 72.1% of its assets in equities, 25.8% in fixed income, 1.6% in unlisted real estate and 0.5% in unlisted renewable-energy infrastructure at the end of the quarter. It owns on average about 1.5% of all listed companies in the world, across some 7,100 companies, which makes its quarterly results a closely watched gauge of global markets.

The weak quarter reverses a strong first half of the year, when the fund returned 12.95%. In September, the fund had outlined plans to reduce its holdings of US Treasury bonds as part of a broader shift away from government-issued debt — a reassessment that Thursday's bond losses underline.