Norway is one of the most prosperous countries in the world. Despite its small population, it has vast amounts of natural resources and a highly developed economy. We analyze the 3 most important stock market indices in Norway.
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Introduction
Located in Northern Europe, Norway is a country with just over 5 million people. Norway is not in the European Union, though it has close ties to it.
It has vast reserves of natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas. The Norwegian economy is very developed, and the government’s public finances are in very good shape, since the country has one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world.
As a result, investing in Norway can be appealing. Because few of its companies are known by international investors, investing in through an exchange-traded fund is a simple and effective option.
In the next few sections, we discuss the 3 most important stock market indices in Norway.
OBX Index
The OBX Index is the most important index of the Oslo Stock Exchange. Launched in 1987, it is nowadays owned by Euronext Group, the company that operates the stock exchanges in Norway.
The OBX index is made up of the 25 largest companies that are listed in the country. Their weightings are based on their market capitalization adjusted for free float.
The stocks with the largest weights in the index are the oil company Equinor, the bank DNB, the telecommunications operator Telenor, and the salmon producers Mowi and Orkla. Fish exports also represent an important source of income for Norwegians.
If you want to learn more about the OBX, you can visit the official Euronext website.
OMX Oslo 20
Another alternative for those interested in investing in Norway is the OMX Oslo 20. This index is calculated by Nasdaq, the company that operates one of the famous stock exchanges in the United States and many of the stock exchanges in Scandinavia.
Very similar in construction to the OBX, the OMX Oslo 20 includes the 20 companies with the largest transaction volume on the Olso Stock Exchange.
Because larger companies tend to see more trading activity in their stock than smaller companies, the constituents of the OMX Oslo 20 are practically the same as those of the OBX. As a result, the correlation between the two indices is very high.
For more details, here is the link to the official website of Nasdaq.
MSCI Norway
Finally, another alternative to invest in the Scandinavian country is by looking for an ETF tracking the MSCI Norway stock index, calculated by the US company MSCI.
The MSCI Norway is composed of all Norwegian shares that are part of the global MSCI World Index of developed countries.
The number of stocks within the MSCI Norway is not always the same but fluctuates over time. It depends on how many companies meet the eligibility criteria to be included.
In most cases, we will find about 10 or 11 companies in the index. Therefore, it is more concentrated than either of the two indices discussed before. Nonetheless, the correlation between the MSCI Norway and the other two indices is very high, because the same large corporations dominate all three indices.
Here is the link to the MSCI website if you want to find additional information.
I hope you found this brief analysis about Norway’s stock market indexes useful, and encourage you to subscribe to my newsletter:
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And if you are interested in learning more about Norway as a country, you will find information about its tax system on the following link:
Taxes in Norway – A Complete Guide
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