Investors Abandoned Norway's Krone In The First Quarter.

Having looked at the top performing currency in the G10, Britain's pound, in "Capital Markets: I Hate Izabella Kaminska Edition" (wherein we shared some thoughts on her going bullish on £, and doing so the month the currency reversed a 1094-year-long decline) we now look at the worst performing of the G10 currencies.

From M&G's Bond Vigilantes, March 15, 2023:

So long, and thanks for all the fish (and oil)*

Investors have abandoned Norway’s NOK. The NOK is this year’s worst-performing G10 currency and is flirting with its all-time lows; it’s pretty much there if you strip out the COVID extremes.

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Some weakness is understandable. Household debt as a % of disposable income (chart below) is one of the highest in the world. Norway, like Sweden, is heavily exposed to variable rates; any changes should slow consumption growth as household debt-servicing costs increase.

 

....MUCH MORE

note: because of the YTD cutoff for one of the currency charts, the Swiss franc and U.S. dollar are shown as outperforming the pound but if memory serves there was something in the news about banks in the U.S. and Switzerland that may have affected investor perceptions of those two countries and their economies in the last few weeks of March.

*"So Long and Thanks For All the Fish" is the fourth Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy book and is the message the dolphins left upon leaving the planet:

...The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Stephen Fry) narrates that the dolphins, the second most-intelligent creatures on Earth, attempted to warn mankind about the planet’s impending destruction, but humans interpreted the dolphins’ communications as tricks. The dolphins left the planet, leaving their final message to humans as “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”...

The sentiment was taken up by bloggers as a sign-off when the blogger left the platform and in particular when the Wall Street Journal started shuttering their little internet beachheads. 

We noted the departure of Keith Johnson who took over (and oversaw the shutting-down-of  the DJ property Environmental Capital:

Here's Mr. Johnson's last post, "So Long, And Thanks for All the Fish" (which title was also used by David Gaffen when he left Dow Jones for Reuters in April):

After more than two years and over 2,000 posts, Environmental Capital is closing its virtual doors.

It’s been, in equal measure, a fun, grueling, and educational ride.

Special thanks are owed to the folks who got it all started and kept it going—Mark Gongloff, Jeff Ball, and Russell Gold—not to mention all the Dow Jones and Wall Street Journal folks who fed the beast so well all this time.

Of course, the biggest thanks of all goes to our readers—both of you. You’re what got us out of bed in the wee hours every morning. Well, that–and the paycheck....