Engelsk

Private Danes had invested kr. 463 billion of their free funds in securities by end-May 2019. Of these, kr. 207 billion is invested in investment funds. An investor buying a share in an investment fund owns a part of the fund's securities holdings. Going over securities owned through investment funds gives a more precise picture of their investments, cf. chart below.

Danish investors have bought a large number of North American shares for a total of kr. 16 billion since January 2019. Contrariwise, Danish investors have sold European shares, mainly caused by A.P. Møller-Maersk's sale of their stocks in French Total.

​In June 2019, the foreign-exchange reserve decreased by kr. 2.1 billion to kr. 449.6 billion.

The target for issuance of domestic government bonds in 2019 is increased to kr. 75 billion due to an increase in the central government's purchases of government-guaranteed mortgage bonds. The expected average sales of government bonds per auction are around kr. 3 billion at market value. The on-the-run issues will remain unchanged and focus will be on issuance in the 2-year and 10-year nominal bonds.

The financial wealth of Danish households reaches a new record. Rising equity markets and a large savings surplus contributed to the Danes' wealth increasing by a total of kr. 306 billion in the first quarter of 2019. The increase, which is the largest since 2015, thus more than offset the decline last year, which raises household wealth to new heights.

The natural real interest rate has declined since the 1990s. An important explanation is demographic trends in Denmark and abroad, which can be expected to continue in the coming years. Among other factors, lower natural interest rates have prompted central banks in several countries to apply unconventional monetary policies in order to stimulate the economy and increase inflation. Spillover effects from similar measures could affect the Danish economy in the future.

We study how the introduction of interest-only mortgages in 2003 affected job creation and the skill composition of the workforce over the business cycle. The reform significantly increased household expenditure and firms reacted to this demand shock by creating jobs. These positions, however, are classified as low-skilled occupations, filled by younger and less educated workers who face earlier separations and a higher degree of unemployment ex-post.