Nest egg

Good morning, wealth whisperers. This is your Stock Market Rundown for March 6th, 2026. Thanks for tuning in once again. Let’s get into it:

TODAY’S TOP STORY: SAVING UP FOR A RAINY DAY

For a portfolio manager, generating $200 billion in returns in a single year is impressive. But it’s not that big a deal when your asset base is over a trillion dollars.

The Norwegian government pension fund is the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund (translation: a fund managed by a state, for the benefit of its citizens). This mega-stockpile of money got built up by royalties that flowed from oil discoveries in the Norwegian part of the North Sea in the 1970 and 80s. 

Unlike certain resource production jurisdictions I could mention (ahem—the UK and Canada), the Norwegians stashed their oil wealth for the future, rather than frittering it away. These guys took the concept of “have an emergency fund” to a whole new level.

The fund is so big it holds around 1.5% of all shares in the world’s listed companies. Running this much money makes it tough to blow the lights out, and the fund slightly missed beating their benchmark in 2023.

But I doubt Norwegians are too broken up over it, given how much they have in the piggy bank. Every single Norwegian is technically a millionaire, thanks to their share of the fattened-up fund. 

With big money comes big mistakes, and in 2022 the fund made a boo-boo that led to them losing $92 million dollars. But Chief Investment Officer of the fund, Nicolai Tangen, was incredibly cool about it.

He forgave the team responsible for the Excel miscalculation, saying: “These things happen! … Don’t let it ruin your weekend.” Somebody get this guy a World’s Best Boss coffee mug—he’s earned it.

What do you think? Chat with me in the comments:

SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

• Football and basketball rule American airwaves, but for the 2 billion people of South Asia, their favourite spectator sport involves wickets, gullies, and bouncers. Cricket is big business, and Disney is buying in. It’s merging with an Indian media company to score a monopoly cn cricket broadcasting rights.

• Layoffs watch: video game company Electronic Arts is turning its employees into Non Player Characters—it’s laying off 5% of its workforce amid sluggish growth.

• Stay greasy, my friends: OPEC reported that its members’ combined oil output rose by 90,000 barrels in February.

• The CEO of AI chip company Nvidia says artificial intelligence could surpass human intelligence in five years. It wouldn’t be hard to surpass my human intelligence—I’m still trying to figure out how to work my TV remote.

That’s it for today, homeslices; let’s circle back first thing tomorrow morning.  Yours in capitalism, The Axe

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