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| - Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, gained some 38 billion euros in the first quarter, boosted by stock market investments, it said Wednesday. The massive fund, which has been built up since the 1990s from the state's oil revenues, was worth a total of 11 trillion Norwegian kroner ($1.3 trillion, 1.1 trillion euros) at the end of March. In the first quarter, it posted a four percent return, driven by its equity investments, which account for 73.1 percent of its portfolio and rose by 6.6 percent. "The rise of the equity market was to a great extent driven by the finance and energy sector," Trond Grande, the fund's second in command, said in a statement. The fund also made gains on its real estate investments, which account for 2.5 percent of its assets and were up 1.4 percent, while its fixed-income investments (nearly a quarter of the portfolio) suffered a 3.2 percent loss. At the same time, the government dipped into its piggy bank to the tune of 83 billion kroner to balance its budget. phy/zl/jll/lth
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