Swedbank's shares rose about 6 percent after Wednesday evening's announcement that the US Department of Justice had closed its money laundering investigation into Swedbank without taking action. This could open the way for extra dividends, as the bank has set aside reserves to cover feared US fines.
Telecom manufacturer Ericsson's shares were also up 0.7 percent after the announcement that union negotiations have begun over a staff reduction that could affect approximately 1,600 positions in Sweden.
Oil prices have fallen more than 3 percent since US President Donald Trump signaled he was likely to refrain from attacking Iran for the time being.
This also depressed the prices of gold and silver, which have risen to historically high levels in this year's new wave of geopolitical unrest, combined with market reactions to the Trump administration's controversial threat to impeach US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
Overnight trading on leading Asian stock exchanges has been down, especially for technology stocks. The same trend was seen on Wall Street in Wednesday's trading.
The OMXS index closed down 0.1 percent on Wednesday. Since the beginning of the year, the index has been up 3.1 percent.
