Courtesy of Pam Martens
Norwegian Central Bank Holdings of U.S. Stocks as of December 31, 2018 (Source: Norway Central Bank a/k/a Norges Bank)
According to the United Nations, Norway has a current population of 5.4 million people. That’s less than 2 percent of the population of the United States. The people of Norway don’t particularly like the United States right now, giving its leadership an abysmal 12 percent approval rating according to a recent Gallup survey.
But according to data provided at the website of Norway’s central bank, Norges Bank, every man, woman and child in Norway has the equivalent of a $45,000 stake in U.S. stocks. The central bank manages the Government Pension Fund Global (also known as the Norwegian Oil Fund) which owned a whopping $245 billion of the U.S. equity market as of December 31, 2018.
That $245 billion includes big chunks of change in U.S. social media/tech stocks and the mega banks on Wall Street. Here’s a sampling: $7.5 billion in Microsoft; $7.2 billion in Apple; $6.7 billion in Alphabet, parent of Google; $6.3 billion in Amazon; and $3.1 billion in Facebook. Investments in the Wall Street banks that helped to blow up the global financial system in 2008 include the following: $2.9 billion in JPMorgan Chase; $2.6 billion in Bank of America; $2 billion in Wells Fargo; $1.3 billion in Citigroup; $659 million in Morgan Stanley; and $455 million in Goldman Sachs.
Norway, of course, is not the only foreign central bank meddling in the U.S. stock market. Another big central bank player is Switzerland’s central bank, the Swiss National Bank. Its SEC filing for the period ending December 31, 2018 showed it owned 2,536 stocks traded in the U.S. at a market value of $78 billion. Its largest holdings were in the same five social/media tech names as Norway’s central bank, i.e., Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, and Facebook.
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