The impact of changes in Brent oil price on OBX and other major Norwegian indexes and Brent’s impact on the USD/NOK pair.

Norway is known for its oil and gas dominated industry and oil price dependency. Oil is also one of the most important commodities in the world and is often referred to as the lifeblood of the world economy. This has been a motivator for this thesis to investigate how the Norwegian stock market is affected by the world and the oil price movements. The method chosen to test this is a multiple regression analysis. OBX is used as the dependant variable and β1=Brent, β2=S&P 500 and β3=USD/NOK as independent variables. S&P 500 is added as a variable that to some degree accounts for the global stock market and USD/NOK was added to test for changes in NOK. The regression was done over the last 18 years. There was also divided into five periods to test for changes in the dependency in the different independent variables. Periods of low and high oil prices was tested to study the effect of different price environments. To test if non-oil related industries is affected by the oil price, several other industry indexes was tested. Currency can be an indicator of the strength of a nations economics and it made therefore sense to test if the USD/NOK is dependent on $/b. The results were tested with one- and two-week data points using a logarithmic return, it will be referred to two weeks datapoints if not pointed out. The results for the entire period showed a β1=0,20 and β2=0,87 and no significant results for USD/NOK. When each period was tested; period 1 (commodity boom), 3 (recovery from financial crisis) and 5 (shale revolution), they had about the same Brent sensitivity 0,17-0,2. The financial crisis was a more sensitive period, where one week data and two week data are very different with one week Brent β1=0,46 and for two weeks β1=0,18. The recovery period also had a higher Brent coefficient with β1=0,29. The last period was the only period with significant USD/NOK coefficient and it was positive β3=0,24. A positive USD/NOK coefficient means that OBX has some benefit from a weaker NOK. When testing the different industry indexes the energy sector had a Brent coefficient of β1=0,33 and the oil service had a Brent coefficient of β1=1,45. The fish sector showed no significant results for oil dependency but USD/NOK had a β3=0,36 indicating that the sector has great benefit of a weaker NOK. The material sector is unitary elastic with S&P 500 and a β1=0,12 for Brent. The finance sector is the most oil dependant among non-oil related sectors with β1=0,14 and an S&P 500 coefficient of 0,92. The finance sector has USD/NOK coefficient of -0,16 which means it benefits from a high valued NOK which most likely is dependent on a higher oil price. Shipping has a Brent coefficient of 0,11 and 0,64 for S&P 500. The USD/NOK ratio is dependent on the oil price however other factor are contributing. The first period seems affected by the dotcom bubble and low oil prices after this the oil price strengthens the NOK until very high oil price show some diminishing return on USD/NOK from Brent. The recovery period seems affected by expectations of higher oil prices. The las period the oil price doesn’t seem to affect the USD/NOK ratio much