Three out of four companies on the Stockholm exchange have reported better-than-expected earnings and analysts believe in continued growth.

It’s been an exceptional strong report season in Sweden as three out of four listed companies have posted better earnings than analysts' forecast. The Stockholm stock exchange was up almost 2 percent on Friday’s midday trading compared to a week ago.

“It’s been an incredible week. The decline in profits has slowed down considerably”, Peter Malmqvist, independent stock market analyst, told The Swedish Wire.

In general third-quarter earnings have been 35 – 40 percent lower than last year. However, during the second quarter earnings were 60 percent below last years level.

“It’s an exceptional improvement. The decline has bottomed out and slow and sure profits will now start to increase. This comports with improvements in national and global economic statistics”, Peter Malmqvist said, adding:

“We will have a strong ending of the year on the Stockholm exchange”.

While the centrals banks hold the interest rate on record low levels there are no reasons to sell stocks and invest elsewhere, he said, explaining that capital will continue to flow into stock markets.

On Thursday world’s stocks jumped as the U.S. economy returned to growth in the third quarter after a yearlong contraction, figures from the Commerce Department showed.

Still, Peter Malmqvist is concerned about the development in the United States.

“The US is a cause for concern. The American consumers doesn’t act as they usually do. And there are large tensions in the society. While some gets hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses unemployment has increased to almost ten percent and may be rising further. There are risks in the US that I’m concered about”, he said.

On Friday U.S. stocks fell after consumer spending dropped for the first time in five months.

Steel company SSAB, the world’s largest supplier of high-tensile steel, rallied 8.8 percent on Friday after posting lower-than-expected losses and saying operating earnings in the fourth quarter “will clearly be better than what was reported for the third quarter”. The same day Sandvik, the world’s largest maker of metal-cutting tools, rose on the exchange after lower losses than the markets forecast.

Although economic uncertainties remain high for Sweden's four major banks, SEB, Swedbank, Handelsbanken and Nordea, overall risk levels have gone down and loan losses are stabilizing.

“The banks will be all right”, Martin Guri, equity strategist at Nordea, told The Swedish Wire. “The outcome of the reports have been better than expected and signals from the bank’s managers have been loss negative".

Since the turn of the year OMX Stockholm 30 is it 42.60 percent.

This article has been published at The Swedish Wire and Nasdaq OMX Nordic.