interest rate statistics

[WebBoard]

From: Fernando Loprete


where can i find a graph or just plain information on interest rates for the past 20 to 30 years. Thank you in advance

 

[Mike]

Reply: 1
From: Mike .


Hi Fernando,

Have a look at the Reserve Bank of Australia site for some interesting stats:
http://www.rba.gov.au/Statistics/op8_index.html

I've attached a couple of Excel docs with interest rate stats. Hope it helps.

Regards, Mike

 

[Anonymous]

Reply: 1.1
From: Anonymous


I'm curious, why do you want the interest rates for the last couple of decades?

Are you going to do a correlation between rates and IP prices? Idle curiosity? Or perhaps looking to the past as an indication to the future?

If the latter you would be better off looking at the current 10 year fixed loan rates and the long term bond rates. A word of caution though, the financial institutions spend a fortune trying to predict the market and even they frequently get it wrong.

 

[paulzag]

Reply: 1.1.1
From: Paul Zagoridis


Way back when I was a trainee Economist writing forecasts of the Australian Economy, we sold spreadsheets (and later custom software) to forecast the money market in a number of ways.

Our accuracy rate was 60-66% versus our closest competitors (including BIS Schrapnel) of 45-50%. We sold it to banks, insurance companies, and financial services companies for $25,000 AUD in 1988 (plus consulting). You needed $10Million AUD in the market for the edge we provided to break even.

Conclusions?
1) Nobody knows anything.
2) Analysis paralysis is more dangerous to your wealth than making offers.

On 9/8/01 8:18:00 AM, Anonymous wrote:
>A word of caution
>though, the financial
>institutions spend a fortune
>trying to predict the market
>and even they frequently get
>it wrong.

Paul Zag
Dreamspinner
Oz Film Biz is at
http://www.healey.com.au/~paulz