The FNI index for the Norwegian economy in July: Highest growth rates measured since 2012

The FNI index was last updated on July 31, 2017. The index signals that the increased activity observed for the 2nd quarter continues into the third quarter, although uncertainty is still large

The FNI index has been updated for July

The FNI (Financial News Index) index, that is constructed by Retriever and the CAMP centre at BI Norwegian Business School was last updated on July 31, this year. Overall, the FNI index confirms the impression that the downturn following the oil price decline (starting over two years ago) is behind us. The Norwegian economy, measured by FNI, is recovering fast, with growth rates above average also in the second quarter. Furthermore, the FNI index signals that the increased activity observed in the second quarter continues into the third quarter, and numbers for July signal the highest growth rates observed since 2012. Uncertainty is still high, though, and so far there is no indication that there is a sharp increase in the business cycle conditions. The most prominent topics that contribute to increase the index are tourism, IT technology and startup, while topics such as stock markets, results and retail contribute to decrease the FNI index

About the FNI index

Retriever and Centre for Applied Macro and Petroleum economics (CAMP) at BI Norwegian Business School have started a collaboration to construct a business cycle indicator for the Norwegian economy. The new index, called FNI (Financial News Index), measures the development of the Norwegian economy on a daily basis, and will be published monthly. The FNI index is constructed based on daily news articles, from many sources. The news will be decomposed into different topics. These will, together with GDP, be used to construct a daily business cycle index. The central idea behind the index is simple: To the extent that newspapers provide a relevant description of the economy, the more intensive a given topic is represented in the newspaper at a given point in time, the more likely it is that this topic represents something of importance for the economy's current and future needs and developments.

The average value of the FNI index is zero. Progressively bigger positive values indicate progressively better-than-average business cycle conditions. Conversely, progressively more negative values indicate progressively worse-than-average conditions.

For more information, see here: https://www.retriever-info.com/fni/

The next FNI update is Tuesday, September 5, 2017.

Contact/press

Professor Hilde C. Bjørnland, BI Norwegian Business School, +47 464 10 767

Country manager Espen Viskjer, Retriever +47 915 52 765

 

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Published: 2017.08.02

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