FxWirePro: Swedish Krona sees appreciation at snail's pace - Cash and options trades for SEK

The Swedish economy is recording robust growth and inflation is rising towards the inflation target. That would imply that the Riksbank is likely to end its expansionary monetary policy sooner than the ECB, in particular as its bond purchasing programme is set to run only until mid-2017.

Against this background, the krona already started appreciating at the end of last year. We have adjusted the EURSEK forecasts and expect slow krona appreciation from current levels.

The Riksbank is unlikely to tolerate an excessively rapid appreciation though and we, therefore, expect to see EURSEK at 9.30 by late 2017. The Riksbank has really not had reason to complain about economic developments over the past few years.

Despite strong growth, its main area of concern in 2014 and 2015 was stubborn deflation, which caused it to introduce a bond purchasing programme in February 2015, which was extended further and further until it amounted to SEK 245bn. by late 2016.

Hence we advocate following trades:

Stay short in EURSEK spot FX at reference 9.4343 with a stop at 9.6637.

On hedging grounds, add longs in 6m NZD put/SEK call, strike 6.3322 for 1.47%. Spot reference 6.3848.