Sweden

The October trade balance beat expectations. However, the better than expected figure is more due to low imports rather than strong exports.

The PMI rose to 49.8 in October, better than we had expected and well above the consensus’ forecast. The uptick shaves off some downside risks that we have seen for industrial production.

Growth is slowing markedly in the business sector and the Riksbank will have to revise down its growth forecasts. That are the main conclusions from the NIER’s Business Tendency Survey for October.

Total unemployment, according to the Swedish Public Employment Service (SPES), was 8.1% in September, compared to 8.8% a year ago.

Leading economic indicators suggest that the world economy is facing a very uncertain period.

The outlook for the world economy is still positive, but uncertainties are more pronounced than previously. We still expect the world economy to weather the storm though mainly because the current growth momentum seems even stronger than at the beginning of the year. The Nordic economies are still in the lead. Economic growth in Sweden [...]

Recent months have seen a strong international recovery, and Nordea revises up its expectations to the 2011 growth outlook. – The global economy came out of 2010 in even better shape than we expected, and we are revising our growth forecast for 2011 which nonetheless looks set to be an interesting year. The upswing is [...]

The outlook for the Nordic economies is still fine though clear signs have now emerged of an international slowdown. A Nordic advantage is the good starting point for public finances in all the Nordic countries ahead of the Big Recession. This means that the need for radical fiscal policy austerity measures is much smaller here [...]

An improved outlook for the global economy will brighten the outlook for Nordic exports in the coming months. Still, a turn for the better in unemployment in the Nordic countries is not to be expected until 2010. This is what the Nordea economists conclude in Economic Outlook.   – We can now see that the [...]