Best Economic Indicators and Surveys

[thefirstbruce]

Was prompted to start this thread after the canning Bis Shrapnel got in another.

Here's a list of surveys and indicators I keep in touch with. WOuld be interested to see what others read.....

HIA- Housing Industry Association
http://economics.hia.asn.au/
or get their media releases emailed automatically to you.

ABS- Popular Statistics
http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/d3310114.nsf/Home/Popular Statistics

ABS - Key Economic Indicators

NAB- Monthly Business Survey
The NAB have traditionally had a strong association with business and their survey is well respected.
http://www.national.com.au/Business_Solutions/0,,148,00.html

Australian Chamber of Commerce- monthly business confidence surveys
http://www.acci.asn.au/


Furthermore, I respect the opinion of sales staff at:
- Bunnings for property activity
- Officeworks for small business
- Myer for discretionary consumption
- Crazy Clarks for belt tightening (and I am proud to admit I shop there, though resisted for years)

in addition, when researching property prices, I access:
- realestate.com.au ...I establish rental yields, and asking prices and volumes for several suburbs I track.
- 3 or more REAs.
- RPData for CMAs if I can wangle access
- bank loans officers, though they aren't as forthcoming or knowledgeable as the local bank manager was 30 years ago.
- a conveyancing solicitor has been one of the best resources.
- local paper for auction results. I feel auctions offer the purest and most up to date indication of market sentiment.

For share market, I read AFR and the Australian, and several websites. And talk to friends in the industry.

 

[MarkB]

Some good links and ideas there, TFB.


Fwiw, my favourite site is:

Monthly Economic and Social Indicators

Other faves are:

Reserve Bank of Australia

They have macroeconomic statistics going back decades (in some cases).

The RBA Chart Pack is also pretty good.



This is something I posted a year ago in this thread.

Herron Todd White publish National (capital city) and Queensland (towns and cities) Market Reports.

The variables they report on are:

- Rental vacancy situation
- Rental vacancy trend
- Demand for new houses [units]
- Trend in new house [unit] construction
- Volume of sales
- Stage of the cycle
- Are new properties sold at prices that exceed their potential resale value?

At a more national level


Housing Market Indicators

Home loan affordability indicator

Owner Occupied Housing Finance

Lending Finance / Purchase of Houses for Rent or Resale

Building approvals


General Economic Indicators

Consumer Price Index

Cash & Housing Interest Rates

Prime Interest Rate / Real Prime Interest Rate

Business Investment

Unemployment

Mark

 

[thefirstbruce]

Thanks Pitt St. Yes, I should have mentioned the RBA, though sometimes I find them verbose and ambiguous.

Thanks for the HTW link. I'd love to have a valuer as a friend. The only one I know well is semi retired and a little foggy at times....

 

[DD1]

more info, better results

Good thread guys, I also use www.quartile.com.au as they give cap city overviews and a basic buy sell or hold suggestion for each state.

Good stuff

DD1

 

[Peter Parker]

Note that a lot of official statistics are lagging rather than leading indicators, so more real-time information (shop sales) or details of intentions could be more valuable.

In the tradition of Freakonomics ( http://www.freakonomics.com/ ), I suggest:

General socio-economic wellbeing of an area:
- Number of times asked for money in street
- Length of queues at Tattslotto counters/ number of people in TABs
- Type of magazines stocked by milkbars/newsagencies
- Number of empty shops in main street
- Neatness of gardens/% houses owner occupied
- Sort of rubbish put out on collection days

Crime, community and trust
- Number of empty stubbies in street
- Evidence of vandalism, graffiti and litter
- Whether strangers' kids greet you when walking down residential streets (they will in the more comfortable metro neighbourboods and stable country towns)

Property Sale/Rental market
- Number of people walking into REAs looking to rent
- Number of For Sale and To Let signs outside buildings
- Building activity on town fringes

Interest in property investing:
- Auction attendances
- Bookshop shelf space taken by property books (now down to 30cm in my local)
- Whether real estate agents get back to you or not!

Peter

 

[crest133]

Good Streetsmarts Spiderman, provided you don't do the street-level homework on Centrelink payday only.
The other 13 days in the fortnight might look different.
cheers
crest133

 

[thefirstbruce]

BTW, another resource some might find interesting are the Australian 'think tanks'. THe media often quote one think tank or another as if they are the pinnacle of unbiased intellectual endeavour. But one should heed that all Oz think tanks have bias. Below is a list of the prominent lefties and righties:

Lefts- wet think tanks
Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA)
http://www.ceda.com.au/
Whitlam Institute
http://www.whitlam.org/
Evatt Foundation
http://evatt.labor.net.au/


Rights- dry think tanks
Centre for Independent Studies (CIS)
www.cis.org.au
Institute of Public Affairs (IPA)
www.ipa.org.au
Tasman Asia Pacific
http://www.tasman.com.au/
Business Council of Australia
http://www.bca.com.au/

 

[Peter Parker]

BTW, another resource some might find interesting are the Australian 'think tanks'.


Lefts- wet think tanks
Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA)
http://www.ceda.com.au/
Whitlam Institute
http://www.whitlam.org/
Evatt Foundation
http://evatt.labor.net.au/

And don't forget Clive Hamilton's Australia Institute http://www.tai.org.au
and http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21320

There's also the Fabian Society, which styles itself as the intellectual wing of the Labor Party (they're more genteel than traditional unionists) but is actually the Gough Whitlam cheer squad http://www.fabian.org.au/

Rgds, Peter

 

[Andrew_A]

Blogtastic

I'm subscribed to some absolutely brilliant Blogs about trading and investing.

It's worthwile spending some time investigating this resource as some very cluey and influential people are presently sharing their thoughts for free if you take the time to find them.

 

[stretchy]

Andrew,

Care to share some links? I have learnt a great deal from blogs - unfortunately nearly all my blogs are US-centric. Its near impossible to find aussie investing/real estate blogs around and I am always on the lookout for more.

My blogroll can be found at http://www.bloglines.com/public/stretchy - the Investing category would be the one most interesting to you.

 

[Andrew_A]

6 of my favourites

Hi Stretchy,

Good point about US centric, mine too.

I use feed demon as a RSS aggregator as this allows me to skim a large number of blogs each day, a few of my favourites.

1) Random Roger A US based funds manager who is off to NZ soon to scope out investment opportunities in our neck of the woods, very worthwile reading.
2) Michael Covel Hedge fund and trend following system focus.
3) The Boy in a Box Trading articles by various authors, regularly updated.
4) Blog Maverick How much would you pay to listen to the wisdom of someone who cashed in on the tech boom to the tune of hundreds of millions and now owns the Dallas Mavericks? I'm not sure because it's free!
5) Will Wheaton (aka.. Ensign crusher from Star Trek) Take us out at cruising speed Ensign Crusher. Hmm.. Ok not so much to do with trading or investing, but he does fancy himself as a poker player.
6) Trader Mike I read a lot of blogs from US traders like this one, and I am picking up all the negativity that is coming out about the US from them.

Also I notice there are a heap of US property related blogs, I'm yet to see the same sort of thing from Australia though I haven't really searched for that yet.

 

[Peter Parker]

Australian property blogs

Also I notice there are a heap of US property related blogs, I'm yet to see the same sort of thing from Australia though I haven't really searched for that yet.

Here's some

* http://polynate.net/aussie_investor/ (see http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22433 )

* http://www.australianhousehunters.com.au/blog/index.php?id=C0_4_1

* http://www.relv.com.au/blogger/realestate_blog.asp

* http://www.aoreg.com/

* http://www.propertyinvesting.com/news/200507archive001.htm


* http://www.propertytalk.com/content/blogcategory/48/137/ (NZ?)


Other blog entries about real estate:

http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/~gregg/archives/2005/06/29/the-search-continues/

http://www.signposts.org.au/index.php/archives/2004/04/05/we-hate-real-estate-agents/

http://www.wealthesteem.org/australian-real-estate-search-engine/

http://blogs.inthemix.com.au/nastykindagal/5417/

Peter