NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[longfellow95]

Yes 8th June this year; 6 or 7 weeks ago.

Has something calamitous happened in Sweden in the last 7 weeks, that I don't know about?
The Volvo car plant re-opened back in April.
Of course there will be some supply line disruption, particularly for their heavy industry.
It's a global economy after all, and they won't be totally immune to the relatively much greater economic slumps in other western economies.

But do please tell me. What has happened in the last 7 weeks, that makes you think things have suddenly got worse?



How about a report from two days ago?

It was supposed to be a terrible start to summer. As a debate rages in Sweden over whether its more lenient approach to dealing with the coronavirus has been on the right track, most European analysts were bracing for the Scandinavian country’s terrible quarterly profits at the height of the crisis. pandemic.

But every day for the past two weeks, Swedish company after Swedish company has exceeded expectations.

From telecommunications equipment maker Ericsson to consumer device maker Electrolux to lender Handelsbanken and locksmith Assa Abloy, Swedish companies have made profits far beyond what the market expected, although in some cases it simply meant a less steep drop than analysts had feared.

“I have never seen such a high proportion of companies with better profits than expected. It’s almost all companies, ”said Esbjorn Lundevall, chief equity strategist at lender SEB.

The bumper harvest raises the question of how many positive surprises are due to Sweden’s more controversial approach to dealing with the coronavirus. Unlike the rest of Europe and North America, the country did not have a lockdown and kept schools and many stores and businesses open – a public health experiment that drew global scrutiny and prompted people to both praise and censorship.

“Keeping society open, schools open, doesn’t mean we haven’t been affected. But that means we weren’t suddenly unable to leave our homes. It has definitely helped businesses, ”Alrik Danielson, managing director of Swedish bearing manufacturer SKF, told FT.

The Gothenburg-based group has kept its offices in Sweden open throughout the crisis and expects workers to arrive unless they are sick. Its underlying second-quarter operating profits in the three months ending in June fell almost in half from a year ago, but were still a third ahead of analysts’ expectations.

“We have quickly adapted to the new reality, although we don’t know how it will evolve,” Mr. Danielson said. Shares of SKF, whose ball bearings are used in everything from paper machines to cars, have been broadly flat since the start of 2020, but have risen by more than half from their low this year in March, when the pandemic broke out.

The Swedish approach to the coronavirus has been highly controversial internationally as its per capita death rate has been much higher than that of neighboring Norway, Denmark and Finland. But its excess mortality levels have been lower than those of other European countries that have locked down like the UK, France, Spain and Belgium.

It’s a similar story in terms of expected economic impact. Economists and central banks predict that Sweden’s GDP is expected to decline this year by around 5 percent, overall like Norway and Denmark and much better than Italy, UK or France.

https://www.fr24news.com/a/2020/07/swedish-companies-profit-from-countrys-covid-19-approach.html