Read more
This book is about statistics - and what they can tell us about economics and financial markets. But before you put it down, imagining the subject will be dry and boring, think again... It is easy to do down statistics and other market indicators. Benjamin Disraeli once commented that they were "lies, damn lies and statistics". However imperfect they may be, indicators are important to investors. The main reason being that they provide the economic context against which individual companies operate, and most importantly for you, movements in some market indicators are considered to be good predictors of future economic activity.
List of contents
Introduction
1. How Economic Indicators are Calculated
The RPI - an example
Building blocks
Pitfalls
2. Who Collects and Issues them?
Who's who in international and national statistics
Commentary on national statistics websites
Timing of releases
3. Who Forecasts Them?
Adam Smith's army
How do the forecasters work?
Are their forecasts accurate?
Information on economic forecasts
4. Prices and Money
Inflation
Money Supply
Producer prices
5. What We Spend
Consumer spending
Consumer confidence
Public spending
Business spending
6. The Work We Do
Gross domestic product
Business confidence
Index of production
Employment and unemployment
7. What We Earn, Save and Borrow
Average earnings
Savings ratio
Interest rates
How interest rates are set
Interest rate statistics
8. How We Trade
Foreign trade and the balance of payments
Exchange rates
Commodity prices
Terms of trade
9. Leading Indicators and Other Stories
Retail sales
Car production and sales
Housing market statistics
Advertising
Stock market indices
Composite leading indicators
10. Oddball Indicators
The Big Mac index
The hemline index
The cocktail party theory
The R-word index
The odd-lot theory
The put-call ratio
The stock market capitalisation to GDP ratio
Tobin's Q ratio
Glossary
Abbreviations
Further Reading
Index
About the author
Peter Temple was born in West Yorkshire and has a degree in economics and statistics from the University of Wales, where he won the Eames Prize for Economics in 1970. He is a former member of the London Stock Exchange and a Fellow of the Securities Institute. He spent the first 18 years of his working life in fund management and investment banking, turning to full-time writing in 1988. His articles cover a wide variety of topics on business, finance and investment and appear regularly in the Financial Times, Shares, International Fund Investment, and on the Ample Interactive Investor website. He also edits the Zurich Club Communique, an investment newsletter. He has written several other books about investing, covering topics such as online investing, venture capital and hedge funds, including First Steps in Shares, First Steps in Bonds and Traded Options, all published by FT Prentice Hall. He and his wife live near Kendal, in Cumbria, and have two grown-up children.
Summary
This book is about statistics - and what they can tell us about economics and financial markets. But before you put it down, imagining the subject will be dry and boring, think again... It is easy to dismiss economic indicators as "lies, damn lies and statistics", but however imperfect they may be, indicators are important to investors. They provide the economic context against which individual companies operate, and most importantly for you, movements in some market indicators are considered to be good predictors of future economic activity.
