Norwegian retail sales rise slightly above expectations in August

Norwegian retail sales rose in August. On a sequential basis, retail sales were up 0.6 percent, as expected. Meanwhile, goods consumption rebounded, rising 2.8 percent, owing to a recovery in car sales.

The trend in retail sales and goods consumption continue to be subdued and with unchanged sales in September, sales are down 0.4 percent for retail sales and 1.1 percent for goods consumption in the third quarter, said DNB Bank in a research report. This is mainly because of a subdued July-print that was already known to Norges Bank in September.

“Hence, we don’t expect this to affect Norges Bank’s assessments of consumption. We continue to expect that the policy rate will be hiked to 1.00 percent in March 2019”, stated DNB Bank.

Consensus expectations for retail sales were a rise of 0.5 percent.