26 February 2024
The week ahead
- On Tuesday, Nova klúbburinn and Sýn publish results.
- On Wednesday, Statistics Iceland is set to publish the February CPI. We expect the Index to increase by 0.89% between months and annualised inflation to decrease from 6.7% to 6.1%. Iceland Seafood and VÍS publish their results.
- On Thursday, Statistics Iceland publishes national accounts.
- On Wednesday, inflation figures will be published for the UK.
Image of the week
There was a continuous surplus on foreign trade in the years 2010 to 2019, driven by high growth in the travel sector. Iceland utilised this surplus prudently, with domestic parties making payments on foreign loans, pension funds purchasing overseas assets and the CBI building FX reserves. The surplus turned to a deficit in 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic when one of the country’s largest export sectors more or less shut down.Foreign trade has been more or less balanced since.
Highlights of the previous week
- The housing prices index rose by 0.4% between months in January. This brought the annual increase from 4.5% to 5.4%, continuing the trend that has been more or less on-going since the value was 0.8% in July of last year. The price of single-family dwellings (+8.4%) has increased more than multi-family dwellings (4.6%) in the past twelve months. In addition to the housing price index, the Housing and Construction Authority (HMS) released the rent index and its monthly report on the real estate market.
- According to the minutes of the interest rate decision meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee on 7 February, one committee member voted against the Governor’s motion to keep the policy rate unchanged, calling instead for a 0,25 percentage point rate cut.
- Statistics Iceland released foreign trade figures for the fourth quarter of 2023. There was an ISK 54 billion deficit in the fourth quarter. For the entire year, the deficit was rather lower, or ISK 17 billion.
- Statistics Iceland also published figures on turnover based on VAT reports for November and December 2023. Year-over-year growth was most notable in real estate trade, the travel sector and construction while turnover contracted in metal production and utilities.
- In the stock market, Síminn and Brim published results, the largest shareholders in Fly Play increased the company’s capital and a draft bill for the sale of Íslandsbanki was submitted for perusal.
- In the bond market, Government Debt Management and Útgerðarfélag Reykjavíkur auctioned bills and Government Debt Management decided to cancel the Treasury note auctions still scheduled in the first quarter.
Statistics and market data
Disclaimer
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