Using data from the Michigan Consumer Survey, I explore alternatives for constructing the Index of Consumer Sentiment (ICS) to improve its forecasting power regarding consumption and its components. Questions which seemed to matter in the past are no longer good predictors. For more recent sample periods, expectations of automobile purchases, unemployment, and current economic situations are more important than categories selected previously. An alternative index is constructed accordingly. Applying different techniques suggested in the literature, the new index significantly outperforms the ICS in both in-sample and out-of-sample tests. Furthermore, the new index also produces more accurate results when forecasting recessions.

Yes / We assess the impact of investor sentiment on future stock returns in 50 global stock markets. Using the consumer confidence index (CCI) as the sentiment proxy, we document a negative relationship between investor sentiment and future stock returns at the global level. While the separation between developed and emerging markets does not disrupt the negative pattern, investor sentiment has a more instant impact in emerging markets, but a more enduring impact in developed markets. Individual stock markets reveal heterogeneity in the sentiment-return relationship. This heterogeneity can be explained by cross-market differences in culture and institutions, along with intelligence and education, to varying degrees influenced by the extent of individual investor market participation.

This thesis analyses if households’ confidence could be a significant variable to predicthouseholds’ debt growth in Sweden. Households’ debts have an important role in thefinancial system where the vulnerability of households’ debts has increased over time.To test whether households’ confidence is a significant variable for the prediction ofhouseholds’ debt growth in Sweden, an econometric model with the households’ debtchange as the dependent variable and the changes in the repo rate, unemployment, grossdomestic product and consumer confidence index as independent variables was used.Consumer confidence index was used as a proxy variable for households’ confidence.It was lagged by one time period in order to quantify if consumer confidence indexcould, with previous value, predict the households’ debt growth. The result showed thatthe households’ confidence was not significant to predict the households’ debt growth. / Denna uppsats har analyserat om hushållens förtroende är en signifikant variabel för attförutse hushållens skuldtillväxt i Sverige. De svenska hushållens skulder har ensignifikant betydelse för den svenska ekonomin. Men sårbarheten för dessa skulder harökat med tiden. För att testa om hushållens förtroende är en signifikant variabel för attförutse hushållens skuldtillväxt i Sverige har en ekonometrisk modell med förändringeni hushållens skulder som en beroende variabel och förändringen i reporäntan,arbetslöshet, bruttonationalprodukten och konsumentförtroendeindex som oberoendevariabler. Konsumentförtroendeindex användes som en ersättare för att mäta hushållensförtroende används. Den var fördröjd med en tidsperiod för att kunna testa omhushållens föregående uppfattningar påverkade framtida skuldtillväxt för hushållen.Resultaten från regressionsanalysen antyder på att hushållens förtroende inte är ensignifikant variabel för att kunna förutse hushållens skuldtillväxt.

This research examines the confluence of consumers’ use of social media to share information with the ever-present need for innovative research that yields insight into consumers’ economic decisions. Social media networks have become ubiquitous in the new millennium. These networks, including, among others: Facebook, Twitter, Blog, and Reddit, are brimming with conversations on an expansive array of topics between people, private and public organizations, governments and global institutions. Preliminary findings from initial research confirms the existence of online conversations and posts related to matters of personal finance and consumers’ economic outlook. Meanwhile, the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) continues to make headline news. The issue of consumer confidence (or sentiment) in anticipating future economic activity generates significant interest from major players in the news media industry, who scrutinize its every detail and report its implications for key players in the economy. Though the CCI originated in the United States in 1946, variants of the survey are now used to track and measure consumer confidence in nations worldwide. In light of the fact that the CCI is a quantified representation of consumer sentiments, it is possible that the level of confidence consumers have in the economy could be deduced by tracking the sentiments or opinions they express in social media posts. Systematic study of these posts could then be transformed into insights that could improve the accuracy of an index like the CCI. Herein lies the focus of the current research—to analyze the attributes of data from social media posts, in order to assess their capacity to generate insights that are novel and/or complementary to traditional CCI methods. The link between data gained from social media and the survey-based CCI is perhaps not an obvious one. But our research will use a data extraction tool called NetBase Insight Workbench to mine data from the social media networks and then apply natural language processing to analyze the social media content. Also, KH Coder software will be used to perform a set of statistical analyses on samples of social media posts to examine the co-occurrence and clustering of words. The findings will be used to expose the strengths and weaknesses of the data and to assess the validity and cohesion of the NetBase data extraction tool and its suitability for future research. In conclusion, our research findings support the analysis of opinions expressed in social media posts as a complement to traditional survey-based CCI approaches. Our findings also identified a key weakness with regards to the degree of ‘noisiness’ of the data. Although this could be attributed to the ‘modeling’ error of the data mining tool, there is room for improvement in the area of association—of discerning the context and intention of posts in online conversations.

The subject of this diploma thesis is financial analysis of BAK stavební společnost a.s., comparison of its results between selected enterprises and possible future progress. Theoretical part of this thesis consists mainly of the theory of indicators of financial analysis. In the practical part are data from annual reports of the above mentioned company and the mentioned indicators of the financial analysis for this company. In conclusion are the company's results.

在國外, 消費者信心指數常被用來預測經濟情勢 (如股價、油價、消費支出等) , 縱然有部份學者對此抱持著懷疑的看法。在台灣, 則因缺乏┌消費者信心指數┘的資料, 以往一直無人從事這方面的相關研究。房地產業是火車頭工業, 也是民生工業; 其榮枯不但影響國家之經濟發展, 亦影響到每一個人居住的能力。因此, 房地產業的景氣波動, 是與大家休戚相關的。透過工商時報所編製的┌消費者信心指數┘資料, 與房地產預售屋公開價的變動情況, 我們發現：在大台北區, 兩者之間呈顯著正相關, 而且前者領先後者九個月。 / The forecast of Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) to Economy is usally used in many nations for years, even someone suspects the effect of it. For lack of CCI, there is seldom such study in Taiwan. Estate industry is an important one, due to its influences on national economic development and the capacity for purchasing dwelling house of everyone, therefore, people pay much attention to it in Taiwan. By collecting the data of CCI and open-price of pre-sold housing in Taipei Area, we can recognize that there is obviously positive relation between them. And the former is a leading in- dicator with 9 months Ahead.

Submitted by Vitor Vidal Costa Velho (vitorvidal89@gmail.com) on 2017-02-03T20:23:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Vitor Vidal Velho - Mestrado Profissional EPGE.pdf: 1181575 bytes, checksum: 9c27f989399f9ce81252d04fb4be9fe6 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by GILSON ROCHA MIRANDA (gilson.miranda@fgv.br) on 2017-02-06T11:30:32Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Vitor Vidal Velho - Mestrado Profissional EPGE.pdf: 1181575 bytes, checksum: 9c27f989399f9ce81252d04fb4be9fe6 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-06T16:50:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Vitor Vidal Velho - Mestrado Profissional EPGE.pdf: 1181575 bytes, checksum: 9c27f989399f9ce81252d04fb4be9fe6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-05 / Survey indicators produced by FGV are economic information published relatively quickly and used as a 'thermometer' of the Brazilian level of activity in the short term. The use of the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI), as well as other indicators within the survey, are taken as a antecedent or coincident in household consumption forecasting models and other official quantitative variables. However, the work seeks to show evidence that information at the aggregate level has not always the best predictive power. The work seeks to analyze the behavior of consumers under a more disaggregated view of the research in order to obtain greater correlation and robustness with the target variables. There is evidence that some consumer groups are able to provide better assessments on one topic than others. Using the Principal Component Analysis (PCA), we reduce the dimensionality of these better indicators to obtain robustness in the forecasting scenarios. To complement these predictions, we will use the indicator of dispersion of responses as an uncertainty proxy, in an attempt to understand subjectivity of survey data. The conclusion of the article is given through the analysis of the stylized facts of the behavior of these groups selected for each case. / Indicadores de sondagens produzidas pela FGV são informações econômicas divulgadas de forma relativamente rápida e utilizadas como 'termômetro' do nível de atividade brasileira no curto prazo. A utilização do ICC (Índice de Confiança do Consumidor), assim como outros indicadores por dentro da sondagem, são tidas como antecedente ou coincidente em modelos de previsão do consumo das famílias e para as demais variáveis quantitativas oficiais. No entanto, o trabalho procura mostrar evidências de que nem sempre as informações ao nível agregado, possuem o melhor poder preditivo. O trabalho busca analisar o comportamento dos consumidores sob uma ótica mais desagregada da pesquisa a fim de obter maior correlação e robustez com as variáveis target. Existem evidências de que alguns grupos de consumidores conseguem fornecer melhores avaliações sobre determinado tema do que outros. Utilizando a técnica de componentes principais, extraímos o núcleo destes melhores indicadores desagregados para obter robustez nos cenários de previsão. Para complementar estas previsões, utilizaremos o indicador de dispersão das respostas como uma proxy de incerteza, na tentativa de compreender o lado subjetivo intrínseco às pesquisas de sondagem. A conclusão do artigo se dá através da análise dos fatos estilizados do comportamento destes grupos selecionados para cada caso.

Svenska bostadspriser har stigit allt mer under de senaste åren. Privatpersoners konsumtion gör att priset på bostäder stiger och belåning ökar i och med prisökningarna. Det huvudsakliga syftet med studien var att undersöka förhållandet mellan bostadspriser och hushållens ekonomiska situation på den svenska bostadsmarknaden under tidsperioden år 2005 till år 2013. Fokus ligger på bostadsrätt- och villapriser på den svenska bostadsmarknaden, sekundärdata är inhämtad från databaser som studien baseras på. Dessa undersöks månadsvis under den valda tidsperioden. Vi har valt att studera variablerna; bostadspriser för bostadsrätter samt villor som beroende variabler och hushållens ekonomiska situation som oberoende variabel. Hushållens ekonomiska situation mäts med hjälp av konfidensindex. Utlåningsränta och antal bostäder till försäljning var studiens kontrollvariabler.Utifrån studiens fastställda hypoteser visade studien ett resultat som bekräftar att hushållens ekonomiska situation har ett signifikant förhållande till priser för bostadsrätter respektive villor och att studiens kontrollvariabler är relaterade till detta samband. Resultatet i denna studie har stöd från tidigare forskning. / Swedish housing prices have been rising steadily in recent years, the consumption of private individuals are pushing housing prices to rise and this relationship between these variables increases the ratio that households are borrowing from banks. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between housing prices and households' financial situation in the Swedish housing market during the period from 2005 until 2013. The focus is on villa and condominiums prices in the Swedish housing market. Secondary data are obtained from databases on which the study is based. These are examined monthly during the selected time period. We have chosen to study 6 variables, housing prices for condominiums and villas as the dependent variable, households' financial situation as the independent variable. The household's financial situation is measured using confidence index. Lending rates and number of housing for sale were the control varibles of the study. Based on the established hypotheses, the study showed a result confirming that the household's current financial situation has a significant relationship to housing prices for condominiums and villas, and that the study's control variables are related to this relationship. The result of this study is supported by previous research. / <p>Betyg E, 170709</p>