Norway sees no sign of any substantial rebound in consumption

Data released by Statistics Norway earlier today showed that Norway's retail sales rose by 0.4 percent m/m in August. The data missed Reuters' consensus expectation for a rise of 0.7 percent. August retail sales bucked the downtrend which saw This increase comes after two months of falling by a total of 1.5 percent.

Consumer spending showed an increase of 0.6 percent after falling 1.2 percent in the two preceding months. Consumer spending is included almost directly in the national accounts and has not shown signs of any substantial rebound.

The annualized growth over the past three months compared to the previous three months was -0.7 percent in August. With the same level of consumption of goods in September as in August, growth in household consumption in the third quarter will be -0.3 percent (not annualized).

"No sign of any substantial rebound in consumption. Norges Bank's upwardly revised projections to 1.9% for private consumption this year seems slightly too high and require that growth in consumption of services remains at least equally elevated in Q3 as in Q2, or that growth in Q4 rebounds markedly." said DNB Markets in a report