Welcome to our Scandi inflation watch. Based on public demand, we will release our SEK and NOK inflation views on a running basis as well.Norwegian (underlying) inflation to print below 0% MoM again

December is typically a seasonally weak inflation month in Norway with declines in Clothing and Footwear prices, Food prices- and health prices. 

Food prices will likely decline >2% MoM, while Clothing and Footwear prices will decline around -0.5% MoM. The recreation and culture category is likely to bounce compared to November and increase around 0.25% MoM. All three categories are softer than seen in 2020-2022 on average based on our price point observations for December.

Furnishing and Household equipment will likely also print on the soft side of typical seasonal price increase patterns with an increase around 1.3% MoM.

A print just above -0.1% MoM in CPI-ATE is our base-case, which takes the annual CPI-ATE to just south of 5.3%. Norges Bank expects 5.6% and there is not yet any IB consensus to match this against.

Chart 1: CPI-ATE versus Norges Bank