Nationalbanken øger sine interventioner. Nordea ser det som forløberen til en uafhængig dansk rentestigning.
Uddrag fra Nordea:
For four consecutive months the Danish central bank has been intervening in the FX market. Despite the acceleration in the monthly purchases we do see this as the prelude to an independent Danish rate hike.
In January the Danish central bank bought DKK 12.1bn to prevent a weakening of the Danish krone against the euro. This is the highest monthly purchase since December 2015 and brings the accumulated purchases over the past four months to a total of DKK 17.8bn.
Chart 1: EUR/DKK og intervention
A long period with unusual Danish krone weakness
As usual, the Danish central bank has not revealed any information about the EUR/DKK level at which it has intervened. However, looking at the development in recent months it seems clear that a spot level around 7.473 is the upper limit currently tolerated by the central bank. If correct, this is markedly above the EUR/DKK levels at which the central bank has intervened in the past. Traditionally, the central bank has had a clear preference for keeping the Danish krone relatively strong, and EUR/DKK has been trading below the central parity more than 80% of the time over the past 20 years.
In our view the recent development marks a shift in the reaction function of the Danish central bank as it now seems to be aiming for a more symmetric band around the central parity. We see this as a natural consequence of the massive inflow to DKK in 2015 and the large current account surplus currently constituting around 9% of GDP. This surplus creates an underlying pressure for a stronger DKK, which forces the central bank to keep Danish money market rates well below Euro-area equivalents.
