The Swedish National Institute of Economic Research (NIER) is due to release the December business and consumer confidence surveys and a new economic forecast.
The Swedish winter has been pretty warm so far and this has not helped sales of clothing and shoes, judging by comments from, for instance, Hennes & Mauritz. Our forecast for retail sales is -0.5% m/m and 3.7% y/y.
The NIER's inflation forecast so far covers 2016 (longer-term forecasts are expressed as annual averages). The latest projection (August) is pretty similar to our own, with CPIF inflation seen levelling out in the region of 1.5%. However, we would not be surprised to see at least some upside compared with the August inflation path, considering that the NIER will probably revise growth upwards.
In Norway, there is little on the agenda in the week before Christmas, the exception being LFS unemployment for October (September-November). We already have the NAVs data for October and November, which point to a moderate increase over the period, so we expect the LFS jobless rate to be unchanged at 4.6%.
The Debt office at Norges Bank will publish its funding plan for 2016 today at 16.00 CET. We expect a supply of NOK50bn in 2016, as the budget indicated, and in line with supply in 2015.
In Denmark, it is worth keeping an eye on the revised national accounts (22 December) for Q3. These revisions do not normally attract any great interest but the preliminary figures showed not only that GDP fell by 0.1% but also that it would have fallen much further had it not been for extensive stockbuilding.
Our Danish interest rate expectations have shifted slightly after an apparent currency outflow and we now expect the Nationalbank to raise its key rate - the CD rate - from -0.75% to -0.65% within the next three months.
To read the entire report Please click on the pdf File Below