Lower inflation than expected in August – CPIF remained at 0.7 percent

It was lower than expected. The economists' average forecast was 0.9 percent, according to Bloomberg's survey, writes TT. Even in July, inflation according to CPIF (consumer price index with fixed interest rate) was 0.7 percent.

According to the measure CPI (consumer price index), inflation rose slightly, from 0.2 percent in July to 0.3 percent in August.

KPIF-XE (KPIF excluding energy) fell from 0.6 percent in July to 0.5 percent in August according to preliminary figures.

The economic commentator: "Good news"

SVT's economic commentator Alexander Norén believes in SVT Morgonstudion that the news is positive.

- This means that inflation came in lower than many had expected. It also means that the concern that Hormuz and the like have started an inflationary conflagration comes to a little shame, he says.

According to Norén, the inflation announcement does not mean much for Swedish households here and now.

- What matters to the Swedes is partly if such good inflation figures continue to come in that you can say that the inflation battle is over. And the important thing - what is happening with oil prices has not yet had side effects in that other things have become more expensive. If it continues, that's good news.

The question now is what the Riksbank will do with the interest rate going forward, and if today's inflation figure had been bad, it would have brought us closer to an interest rate increase, he says.

Several forecasts have suggested that the Riksbank may raise the interest rate as early as September.

- This has increased the probability that the Riksbank will not raise the interest rate during the rest of that year in any case.

Different measures of inflation

Statistics Sweden calculates different inflation measures for different purposes. The change in CPI is the most common measure of inflation in Sweden, but CPIF is the measure that is the Riksbank's target variable for monetary policy.

The difference between CPI and CPIF is that in CPIF, household mortgage interest rates are kept constant.