Alaska Permanent Fund suffers multibillion-dollar decline amid Trump tariff-driven market crash

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - The Alaska Permanent Fund, the No. 1 source of general-purpose revenue for state services and the Permanent Fund dividend, suffered a multibillion-dollar loss during last week’s stock market crash, according to James Brooks with the Alaska Beacon.

According to preliminary figures published by the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., which manages the fund, the fund’s assets declined from $81.7 billion on Tuesday to $79.7 billion at the end of the day on Friday. Figures for Monday were not immediately available.

From Wednesday through Friday, the S&P 500, a leading American stock market, declined 10.5% as markets reacted to President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on most imported goods.

Paulyn Swanson, a spokesperson for the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., said the Permanent Fund’s value declined by 2.7% during the same period.

Speaking last Thursday, APFC executive director Deven Mitchell noted that the fund is invested in a variety of assets, including real estate, bonds, private equity and gold, as well as publicly traded stocks.

That means the Permanent Fund hasn’t performed as well as the S&P 500 in recent years, but during a downturn, it doesn’t suffer as much.

“In our public equity portfolio, we’ve had a tilt away from growth stocks and the S&P 500, which we’ve suffered under over the last two years, but now we’re benefiting from that tilt towards value. So in some ways … we’ll be making up ground relative to our benchmark,” he said, referring to a mix of investments that the corporation measures its performance against.

Since 2018, an annual transfer from the Permanent Fund to the state treasury has been the largest source of general-purpose revenue for services and the dividend.

In the fiscal year that starts July 1, that transfer will be worth $3.9 billion. All of the state’s oil revenue combined is expected to be worth less than half that — $1.6 billion.

For the moment, money for the transfer is kept in the earnings reserve, a spendable account within the fund. As of Feb. 28, Swanson said, the earnings reserve contained $9.8 billion — enough for the upcoming transfer, an inflation-proofing payment, and part of the upcoming fiscal year 2027.

At that time, the earnings reserve also held $1.8 billion in unrealized gains — much of which may have been lost in the market slide.

Editor’s note: This story was republished with permission from the Alaska Beacon.

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