May 24, 2024 11:22 GMT
NORWAY: NOK Outperforms Despite Oil, Equity Weakness; Unions Announce Strike
NORWAY
NOK once again outperforms, with spot currently on track to return 0.6% against the G10 basket this week.
- Today’s outperformance comes despite brent crude futures and wider European equity markets trading on a soft note.
- EURNOK is 0.3% lower, but has been unable to sustainably breach yesterday’s low thus far.
- NOKSEK is off highs, but remains 0.3% firmer and trading above the clustered resistance noted yesterday (Jan 29 high at 1.0066 and the trendline drawn from the August 2022 high).
- This morning, labour unions Akademikerne and Unio announced strikes starting Monday (May 27) after wage negotiations failed. Bloomberg reports that the strike could impact up to 3,500 workers.
- For context, Akademikerne and Unio are the second and third largest unions in Norway, with membership totalling ~660k in 2023 (~32% of total union membership).
- The largest union, LO (with ~50% of total union membership), agreed a 5.2% Y/Y settlement in April, which has prompted the Norges Bank to cite upside risks to the March MPR wage growth forecast of 4.9%.
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