Storebrand Global Plus: Q3 2026 Update

AI and oil have been the two dominant market drivers of 2026. Energy has been the best performing sector in developed markets this year, up around 37% in USD, followed by information technology at around 29%[1]. Tech gains have been highly concentrated, with AI-related stocks accounting for around US$6.3 trillion of the roughly US$9 trillion added to the S&P 500's market value this year:

Year-to-date, Global Plus is around 30bps behind the MSCI World Index, having recovered most of the 130bps lost in the first quarter, largely thanks to a strong second quarter in relative terms. Over the third quarter, the fund lagged the benchmark by around 30bps, with most of the shortfall coming in July, before it tracked the benchmark closely in August and September[2].

Over- and underweights in AI-related names have driven much of the fund's relative performance this year, alongside its exclusion of oil and gas. The portfolio’s 1.9 percentage point overweight exposure to IT – the sector ranks highest on average across our climate tilts – added 91bps during the second and third quarters, while the fund’s energy underweight (4.0 percentage points below the index) contributed further positive returns.

Exclusions recover lost ground

Since the start of April, not owning fossil fuels has added around 210bps on a relative basis – almost a mirror image of the cost of the exclusion in the first quarter – with the absence of US oil majors, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, among the largest positive contributors. The fund's other screens added a further 100bps or so over the second and third quarters, led by weapons (+45bps) and conduct-based (+36bps) exclusions.

These gains were partly offset by the climate solutions sub-portfolio, which represents around 12% of the fund, detracting 122bps over the last six months, after adding around 80bps in the first quarter, with all seven themes weighing on performance. Renewable energy, the largest overweight at almost 5% of the portfolio against less than 1% of the benchmark, accounted for 75bps of this relative loss, with US geothermal producer Ormat Technologies, Canadian transmission operator Hydro One and Italian grid operator Terna among the detractors. 

The remaining ~88% of the portfolio, which provides broad market exposure, detracted around 70bps over the second and third quarters, reversing a first quarter gain of 40bps. The tilts applied to this core of the fund – towards companies with lower carbon intensity, lower carbon and ESG risk, higher green revenues and validated Science Based Targets – have had little effect on returns this year, in contrast to 2025 when the SBTi tilt alone cost around 60bps. 

Smarter screening

A key strategy improvement during the third quarter was the replacement of our manual climate solutions review with an AI-driven process. Starting from a long list of companies held by thematic climate solutions funds globally, the model reads five years of investor relations material and other sources for every candidate. A company qualifies if more than half of its revenues come from climate solution products and services, under a new and more granular taxonomy, and the process was fine-tuned using our existing whitelist to ensure consistency with our previous approach. We continue to evaluate the model’s output to ensure consistency with the earlier manual process. Some key advantages of the new process are consistency across companies and through time, repeatability, improved audit trail, as well as high capacity which allows for prompt analysis of new information.

The result is a universe of 655 qualifying companies across developed and emerging markets, each with an up-to-date analysis and classification. Renewables (212 companies), grid (122) and batteries (92) account for around two-thirds of the total, and the more detailed taxonomy allows us to map entire value chains, from solar glass and inverter makers through to cable manufacturers and transmission network operators. The next step is to extend the analysis to a larger list of companies, rather than only those held by climate solutions funds.
 

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[1] Source: MSCI. MSCI World sector indices in USD as at 30/09/2026. 

[2] Performance in NOK, gross of fees.