Oil: Rising prices to be supportive for NOK – Nomura

Analysts at Nomura suggest that oil prices have continued to rise so far in 2018, which should be positive for oil exporters like Norway.

Key Quotes

“Norway’s basic balance tends to improve when oil prices rise, and we expect the current account to improve in the coming quarters as higher oil prices and strong external demand boost net exports. Norway has continued to see substantial portfolio outflows, mostly from government buying. However, we judge these of late to have limited the impact on NOK particularly with the government still withdrawing from the GPFG. Net buying of Norwegian assets by foreign investors should accelerate as the oil price recovers, which is more important for FX than Norwegian government flows. We expect the flow backdrop to be NOK supportive in 2018.”