Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s biggest, said yesterday it earned more than $100 billion in the first half as stock markets soared this year. The oil-rich country launched the fund in the 1990s to protect the economy from the volatility of crude prices and finance the future needs of Norway’s generous welfare state. Its value reached 11.7 trillion Norwegian kroner (€1.1 trillion) at the end of June, with three-quarters of its investment in global equities. The fund posted a 9.4 per cent return, or 990 billion kroner (€94.7 billion), in the first six months of the year. The head of the fund, Nicolai Tangen, said the energy, finance, health and technology sectors drove the gains.