Wednesday 22 April 2009

Fun with numbers

"House sales jumped 40% in March", blares the headline to this BBC article.

Reading on, "...when the figures are adjusted for seasonal trends, they ... show a rise from 54,000 to 61,000, a jump of 13%... Property sales are still at their lowest levels since the early 1970s and are still less than half the level seen in March 2007."

H/t PhD In Bubbles.
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See also yesterday's BBC spin, "Inflation measure turns negative".

Reading on ... "The Consumer Prices Index (CPI), fell in March to 2.9% after February's unexpected rise to 3.2%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. The official CPI figure is still well above the government's target of 2%".

As Little Professor pointed out at comment 20 here:
"See the BBC headlines from 2007, when RPI was running at 4-5% but CPI was around target:
UK inflation rate lower at 2.7%
UK inflation rate rises to 2.8%
UK inflation holds steady at 2.1%
UK inflation rate eases to 1.8%
UK inflation rate stays at 1.8%."

1 comments:

Simon Fawthrop said...

There's a good briefing article on housing in this weeks Economist. Some good stats that you might be intersted in as well.