Case Shiller Home Price ‘Boost’ Disappears After Seasonal Adjustment; AP, S&P Like the Raw Numbers Better
While the vast majority of those in the establishment press doggedly insist on reporting seasonally adjusted numbers in most economic spheres, there is an odd exception: Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Indices . Not that it's completely the press's fault. S&P emphasizes the raw numbers over the seasonally adjusted ones, and for a pretty good reason: The raw numbers represent what's really happening on the ground with home prices. In the current economy, the seasonal calculations can't really be said to reflect typical seasonal patterns. Of course, this logic should apply to other key areas, particularly employment, but we (or maybe it's the reporters) are apparently not mature enough to understand large monthly swings in jobs added or lost, or able to see them in the context of previous years. Given that the press usually hangs its hat on seasonal numbers, you'd think they'd be more than a little shy about copying S&P's press release, which today described a very small increase as a a “boost” in home prices , which disppeared after seasonal adjustment, as seen below: Poof! After seasonal adjustment, the already highly questionable “boost” evaporates (since when is 0.7% or 0.8% a “boost,” especially coming off bottom-feeding lows?). In five cities, the seasonal adjustment process, suspect as it is, turned an increase into a decrease. As one would expect, Derek Kravitz at the Associated Press was among Case/Shiller's biggest “boosters” : Spring buying boosts home prices in 13 US cities
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Case Shiller Home Price ‘Boost’ Disappears After Seasonal Adjustment; AP, S&P Like the Raw Numbers Better
While the vast majority of those in the establishment press doggedly insist on reporting seasonally adjusted numbers in most economic spheres, there is an odd exception: Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Indices . Not that it's completely the press's fault. S&P emphasizes the raw numbers over the seasonally adjusted ones, and for a pretty good reason: The raw numbers represent what's really happening on the ground with home prices. In the current economy, the seasonal calculations can't really be said to reflect typical seasonal patterns. Of course, this logic should apply to other key areas, particularly employment, but we (or maybe it's the reporters) are apparently not mature enough to understand large monthly swings in jobs added or lost, or able to see them in the context of previous years. Given that the press usually hangs its hat on seasonal numbers, you'd think they'd be more than a little shy about copying S&P's press release, which today described a very small increase as a a “boost” in home prices , which disppeared after seasonal adjustment, as seen below: Poof! After seasonal adjustment, the already highly questionable “boost” evaporates (since when is 0.7% or 0.8% a “boost,” especially coming off bottom-feeding lows?). In five cities, the seasonal adjustment process, suspect as it is, turned an increase into a decrease. As one would expect, Derek Kravitz at the Associated Press was among Case/Shiller's biggest “boosters” : Spring buying boosts home prices in 13 US cities
