The Alaska Permanent Fund's value dropped more than a billion dollars in a single day Monday when the stock market tumbled, and even after Tuesday's market rally is estimated to be about $2 billion down from its June 30 heights.

The market value of the fund reached $40.1 billion at the close of the fiscal year on June 30. That was the highest it has ever ended the year, prompting officials to send out an Aug. 2 announcement to the news media that led to widespread coverage of the fund's success.

But there's been an estimated $2 billion drop from the June 30 level that included a $394 million reduction Friday and more than a billion on Monday.

The results of Tuesday's rally on the total value of the fund won't be clear until today but Permanent Fund officials expect it likely recovered around $670 million of its recent losses to put the total fund value in the neighborhood of $38 billion.

"These are a couple pretty volatile days," Michael Burns, chief executive of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. said in an interview Tuesday. "I want to remind people we are very long term investors."

The current volatility is not going to change the amount of the next round of Permanent Fund dividend checks all eligible Alaskans will receive this fall. The size of the checks is calculated based on the fund's cash profits over the past five fiscal years.

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