🇳🇴❗️Cable FX Macro Weekly Note: Norway September Consumer Prices

**As seen in Risk In The Week report 10/06/23, subscribe at cablefxm.co.uk/reports

Norway consumer prices slowed down further in August, CPI ATE ticked at 6.3% Y/y from the prior 6.4%, this was below the consensus forecast of 6.6%. Headline prices decelerated to 4.8% Y/y from 5.4%, expectations had seen August matching the prior. On the month, the closely watched food prices posted the sharpest decline since March at -1.0% M/ m, housing prices recorded a fourth consecutive month of easing, and household prices fell by 3.2%. The monthly underlying CPI print declined by 0.6%, this was the first deflationary figure seen since November. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect Norway CPI to rise by 5.8% this year, they see inflation falling to 3.1% in 2024. Given that consumer prices remain above the central bank target, analysts expected another rate hike from the Norges Bank. The policy rate was lifted in September taking the benchmark to 4.25%, the central bank will meet again on November 2nd. Analysts at Nordea expressed disagreement with the Norges Bank CPI forecasts for next year, the central bank revised CPI higher by 0.9 percentage points and now sees headline inflation accelerating faster than core in 2024. Nordea said this is puzzling given expectations for lower energy prices next year. Economists at SEB said that CPI-ATE ex-food, alcohol, and tobacco metric is seen easing given substantial calendar effects. SEB expects food inflation to increase over the next 6 months, as for September prices they see a headline and CPI-ATE at 4.0% and 6.2% Y/y, respectively.