The article provides a brief definition of the sovereign wealth funds (SWF )and a deep analysis of two SWF institutions: Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and China Investment Corporation, and their main sources of capital,the so called petrodollars and the excess currency reserves resulting from trade surpluses, respectively. The author uses these examples to illustrate the role of SWF, both those financed by the petrodollar capital and those generated thanks to the excess foreign exchange reserves, in the world economy and the current global migration of capital, as well as in the context of the latest financial crisis caused by the credit crunch in United States. Moreover, the author of the article tries to discuss the possible scenarios of sovereign wealth funds' future, not only in terms of their recent expansion, but also in the circumstances of many fears of western countries and actions that they take to prevent their economies from capital flows coming from state owned investment funds from the Middle East and Asia. The question here is whether SWF are going to maintain the position of dominant institutional investors on world's financial markets for a longer period of time or their significance is going to be diminished by the pressures from the West.