A focus on “active trading” in stocks has caused Norway’s powerful “oil fund”, or “overseas pension fund” to lose some NOK115 billion ($22.3 billion) or 12 percent of its value since the New Year.

An article in Norwegian business daily Dagens Næaringsliv cited values in the FTSE-All World, an important benchmark for the fund’s managers, in a front-page story that raised eyebrows in Norway. With oil production falling, the fund is seen by once-poor, now oil-rich Norwegians as providing wealth for future generations.

Likeminded funds exist in Russia’s $100 billion state stabilization fund, which is matched in Azerbaijan and Iran. Canada’s Alberta has never had an oil fund, a move now seen as a mistake by the oil province’s leadership.

The Norwegian fund is said to have 30 percent of its value invested in United States stocks, where nervous investors seeking refuge in commodities and other financial sector offerings hae caused values to drop by upwards of 20 percent on average before ground was regained.

The oil fund’s next biggest investments, and by default its losses, have been in London stocks, followed by French, Japaense and German stocks.

ws@scandoil.net