Monday, March 30, 2009

The Sarcasm Report v.26

Most housing indexes overstate downturn -analysts

"Some of the widely followed indexes such as Case-Shiller, OFHEO, NAR and so on are way too broad to be meaningful," said Sklarz, the Honolulu-based president of Collateral Analytics as well as a co-founder of Collateral Intelligence.

"To properly track the real estate market you really need to get down to all the local markets," Sklarz said. "Now we have the tools to properly track that. So why track these overly simplistic indicators that can be very biased, as they are in the current environment, when there's so many more complicated things going on in the market?"


Similarly, the consumer price index is way too broad to be meaningful. To properly track inflation you really need to get down to the individual products.



The price is holding steady. There's no inflation or deflation. Hurray!

2 comments:

mab said...

Stag,

I don't know if I should short the "snuggie" due to global warming or go long due to peak oil.

Once again, doing nothing seems like a good option.

In a sense, I'm letting perma-growth decide for me. The snuggie's fate seems to depend on whether peak oil or global warming hits first.

Stagflationary Mark said...

mab,

I don't know if I should short the "snuggie" due to global warming or go long due to peak oil.

Have you thought of burning the snuggie? Hey, just trying to think outside the box. ;)

Once again, doing nothing seems like a good option.

Doing nothing seems like a "goods" option.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USGOOD?cid=11

Oh my. The puns! The puns!