Norwegian and Swedish currencies hold near multi-year lows on weak data

Norwegian krone and Swedish krona could not make gains on the dollar rally on Friday as Scandinavia released worse than expected data.

The USD/NOK edged higher to 7.6763 from 7.6312, snapping a two-day losing streak. The pair had touched an over 10-year high of 7.8485 on 7 January before falling back to a low of 7.5961 on Thursday.

The big fall in oil prices have been the major reason for the selloff in the currency of Norway, for which revenue from oil exports is crucial.

USD/SEK moved slightly lower as dollar weakness weighed, but the move was negligible given that the pair is pretty much on a multi-year high.

At 11:00 GMT, USD/SEK quoted 8.0392 from its previous close of 8.0429, and little changed from the over five year high of 8.0619, hit earlier on Thursday.

Swedish industrial output fell 5% from a year earlier in November after registering a 2% growth in the previous month.

At the same time, inflation rate in Norway rose to 2.1% in December on a year-on-year basis from 1.9% in November, producer price deflation worsened to 7.9% from 6.6% in the country.

Other data released in Norway showed retail sales decline 0.61% from a year earlier in November after printing a 2.8% growth rate in October.

FOMC member Narayana Kocherlakota said raising US interest rates this year would hinder a recovery in inflation, pulling back the USD index from the 12-year high of 92.53 hit on Thursday to as low as 92.13 by 9:00 GMT.

The halt in the dollar rally on Friday, however, prevented bigger losses in the Scandinavian currencies.

The sharp slide in euro and pound has been helping the dollar rally in the recent past, reflected by the 2.4% rally just within the first five days of 2015. The index had broken through the 92.43 mark to hit the over decade high in the previous session.

The market is now waiting for the US jobs report due at 13:30 GMT.

Non-farm job additions may have fallen to 245,000 in December according to market consensus from 321,000 in November, but the US unemployment rate is forecast to have fallen to 5.7% from 5.8%, adding to dollar positives.