Riksbank minutes: Soft rate hike confirmed – Nordea Markets

According to Mats Hydén, analyst at Nordea Markets, just released Riksbank minutes were quite neutral and perhaps with a dovish tilt.

Key Quotes

“The minutes today contained a lot of reasoning regarding the strong current conditions in the Swedish economy and abroad. Especially Governor Ingves referred to arguments for the rate hike that are quite broad and not very nimble to the current weakening of economic indicators.”

“All-in-all, the minutes were quite neutral, perhaps with a dovish tilt. The downplaying of economic weakening since October and the referring to long-term factors such as resource utilization as drivers for keeping inflation around 2 % explain the hike, while the mentioning of risk factors explains the flattening of the rate path.”

“Given the development in markets and economic indicators recently, we consider the minutes to be on the margin dovish. The minutes support our view that the next rate hike is a long way off.”