US (S&P 500) stock market including the cyclically adjusted price earnings ratio (PE10 or CAPE) – May 2010 Update

To try and squeeze some more performance out of a retirement investing strategy that is heavily focused on buy & hold and asset allocation I am using a Cyclically Adjusted Price / Average 10 Year Earnings (PE10 or CAPE) ratio for the S&P 500 to value the US (specifically the S&P 500) stock market. The method used is that developed by Yale Professor Robert Shiller however I also incorporate earnings estimates up to the PE10 month of interest. Background information here.

GDP per capita – BRIC vs PIGS vs UK, USA, Germany

We hear every day about the gross domestic product (or GDP) of countries. For example, it is always seen as negative if GDP is decreasing (by definition the UK enters a recession if there are 2 quarters of negative GDP) and positive if GDP is increasing. For the Average Joe on the street though I think GDP is not as important as GDP per capita which just doesn’t seem to ever discussed in the media or by government. For example:
- In an extreme I think if GDP started to fall but the population (through migration for example) fell at a faster rate then it is very possible that a person’s standard of living could actually be increasing. This is because the average persons GDP per capita would be increasing meaning that they should also be increasing their salary.

Australian Property Market (Alternate Data) – May 2010 House Price Update

The Brisbane and Australian Eight Cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, Darwin & Canberra) House Price Index published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) catalogue 6416.0 suits my requirement to track Australian house prices as part of my retirement investing strategy.  It however has a big flaw for me by only publishing the housing data quarterly.

Australia, UK, US and the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) government 10 year bond yields – May 2010 update

I continue to monitor the 10 year government bond yields of three countries (Australia, United Kingdom and the United States) to try and understand when interest rates on savings and mortgages may start to rise with my datasets shown in today’s chart. In addition with all the excitement that is occurring with the PIGS I have decided to also dedicate a monthly chart to ‘Club Med’ (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) also.

UK Mortgage Rates and Mortgage Approvals – May 2010 Update

Today I present two regular charts that as with last month continue to give me little information on what could be occurring in the housing market. The first shows the monthly interest rate of UK resident banks and building societies sterling standard variable rate mortgage to households (not seasonally adjusted) and highlights that for this data set rates remain at near record lows at 4.04% for April 2010 (actual low was 3.82% in April 2009). Compare this with the retail price index (RPI) of 4.4% and the average mortgage is better than free money with a negative real interest rate.