Norway's giant sovereign wealth fund narrowly beat its internal benchmark in the second quarter of the year, helped by soaring global equity markets, it reported today.

A 65.1% allocation to global equities pushed one of the world's largest sovereign investors to net an income of $24bn over the quarter. With an overall return of 2.6%, it beat its benchmark, which is a blend of equity, bond and real estate indices, by 0.3%.