Norway's €234bn ($301bn) sovereign wealth fund, one of the biggest institutional investors in Europe, is continuing to pile into equities despite losing 14.5% on its strategy during the first nine months of last year.

Yngve Slyngstad, director of the Government Pension Fund, said that he believed equities prices to be so cheap now that it is a good time to buy, even though the 14.5% decline in the fund's value during the first nine months of last year was worse than the 12.4% retreat of its benchmark portfolio, which is set by the Norwegian government to gauge its performance.