Norwegian Kroner: the Last Victim of “Soft Panic”

Sep 01, 2022
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The dollar index DXY was last flat at 108.93, hovering just below a two-decade peak reached on Monday of 109.48. The index is on track for its 3rd consecutive month of almost uninterrupted climbing, having risen over 2.5% in August alone. Basically, all word currencies’ fallouts stem from the continuing ascension of USD, although individual stories do vary. Also, macro publications have been under microscope because of uncertainty around inflation and regional interest rate hikes.

Thus, as was recently reported, inflation in Germany, the euro zone's largest economy, hit its highest level in almost 50 years in August, data showed on Tuesday, which has markets pricing a better-than-even chance of a 75 basis point rate rise at the ECB's meeting next week.

The Norwegian kroner tumbled over 1% against the dollar and euro after the country's central bank said it would buy more dollars for its sagging sovereign wealth fund. On August 17, Norway's sovereign wealth fund remarkably reported a record loss of 1.68 trillion Norwegian kroners ($174 billion) in 1H 2022 as stocks and bonds were hit by global recession fears and raging global inflation. The $1.3 trillion fund's return on investment was a negative 14.4% for the January-June period.

Back to Norway’s central bank action, more precisely, The Norges Bank said it plans to exchange 3.5 billion Norwegian kroners ($355.41 million) per day into foreign currency, up from 1.5 billion per day in August, which will in turn be invested abroad by its notorious $1.2 trillion wealth fund, the world's largest.

It was last down 1.5% against the dollar at 10.029, hitting its lowest level in a month. Against the euro, the kroner was down 1.3% at 10.06, having earlier touched its lowest level since Aug. 10.