“Negative sentiment characterizes Oslo Børs as oil prices weaken and Aker Horizons turns down”

Negative sentiment continues to characterize the Stock Exchange, after a troubled day yesterday in world markets. Aker Horizons has released figures, and turned down after an early rise.

The case is updated throughout the trading day…

The mood on Oslo Børs soured throughout the morning on Wednesday, after there was a slight rise early in the day.

The main index is down 0.66 percent just after 10.30 am.

Oil prices have weakened further since the opening of the stock market, after the significant fall on Tuesday. North Sea oil (burnt spot) is trading for 73.6 dollars a barrel at the time of writing, more than a dollar and a half lower than when the stock exchange closed yesterday.

This is how it goes with the most traded shares:

• Equinor is down 2 percent
• Aker BP, which trades without a dividend, falls 4.6 percent.
• Norsk Hydro is up 1.2 percent
• PGS falls 0.7 percent
• Yara rises 0.5 percent

Get all the market news throughout the day in Aksjelive.

The oil price fell from over 79 dollars down to just over 75 dollars a barrel during Tuesday afternoon. This helped weigh on the Oslo Stock Exchange, and the main index ended yesterday down 1.47 per cent.

Figures indicating weaker industrial activity in China, more vacant jobs in the private sector in the US, concern about the US debt ceiling and the upcoming interest rate decision in the US are all factors that played a role in oil prices, wrote Reuters.

There was also a decline on Wall Street and the most important stock exchanges in Europe yesterday. In Asia, the arrows pointed markedly down in several places in the morning hours on Wednesday.

Value jump for Aker Horizons

Kjell Inge Røkke’s green investment company was among the companies that presented quarterly figures on Wednesday morning.

Aker Horizons increased its values ​​to NOK 15.8 billion in the first quarter.

This is an increase from NOK 15.1 billion at the end of last year’s fourth quarter. However, the values ​​have fallen compared to last year’s third quarter. Then the corresponding figure was NOK 16.5 billion.

The Aker Horizons share started the day up, but has since turned down. The share is down 5.7 per cent at 10.30am, after being up more than 4 per cent in very early trading.

Otherwise, there have been quarterly figures and news from several other companies:

• Industrial group Borregaard increased both profit and turnover in the first quarter. Profit before tax ended at NOK 292 million, up from NOK 277 million at the same time last year. Revenues increased at the same time to NOK 1.85 billion. The share is down 1.1 percent.
• Technology company Napatech widened its losses in the first quarter, reporting that it continued to feel “the impact of the global recession on the technology sector” at the start of the quarter. The result before tax fell to minus 21.6 million Danish kroner. The share is down 8.7 percent.
• The electrical importer reports that the sales ban in Sweden for Easee’s electric car chargers hit them in the first quarter. The company had a profit before tax of minus NOK 5 million in the quarter, compared to NOK 12 million at the same time last year.
• Grameenphone, Telenor Group’s subsidiary in Bangladesh, had an operating profit of NOK 1.47 billion in the first quarter. This is down from 1.52 billion in the same period last year. Telenor presents quarterly figures on Thursday. The Telenor share is down 0.2 percent.

Wall Street falls before interest rate decision

Many market eyes are on the US on Wednesday. The central bank, the Federal Reserve (Fed), will make its interest rate decision this evening, followed by a press conference with central bank chief Jerome Powell.

The broad expectation is that the Fed will raise the interest rate further by 0.25 percentage points, so that the interest rate range in the US will rise to 5–5.25 per cent.

In the US stock markets, there was a broad decline on Tuesday evening, and bank shares contributed to the decline. All three of Wall Street’s benchmark indexes fell by more than one percent.

In the pre-trade on Wall Street, there is a cautious rise at 10.30 Norwegian time.