{"id":19412,"date":"2020-12-29T17:59:52","date_gmt":"2020-12-29T15:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/?p=19412"},"modified":"2020-12-29T17:59:52","modified_gmt":"2020-12-29T15:59:52","slug":"global-insight-alt-data-show-activity-drops-on-virus-holidays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/archives\/19412","title":{"rendered":"GLOBAL INSIGHT: Alt-Data Show Activity Drops on Virus, Holidays"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><span style=\"color: #000000;\">(Bloomberg Economics) &#8211; &#8211;\u00a0With the Covid-19 recession rendering many traditional indicators outdated before they are published, Bloomberg Economics is using a set of high-frequency, alternative data to build daily activity indicators. Here\u2019s what the latest data show:<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">As expected, economic activity in several of the world\u2019s largest advanced economies plummeted over the Christmas holidays.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">An increase in Covid-19 infections and stricter containment measures in November and early December, led activity to drop sharply in the third week of December. A decline in mobility and other alternative data indicators is not unusual over the Christmas and New Year holidays. But in some countries, such as Germany and Italy, very strict containment measures imposed shortly before Christmas added to the weakness.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Japan is the only bright spot among advanced economies. Activity held steady at more than 90% of its pre-virus level both because of a large measure of success in controlling the virus and the lack of the seasonal factor of Christmas.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Our indicators provide a high-frequency guide to the pace of recovery across countries, and attempt to improve the signal-to-noise ratio in alternative data. They are not a substitute for the detailed country view.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-19413\" src=\"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/WhatsApp-Image-2020-12-29-at-5.51.23-PM.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"679\" height=\"422\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/WhatsApp-Image-2020-12-29-at-5.51.23-PM.jpeg 679w, https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/WhatsApp-Image-2020-12-29-at-5.51.23-PM-300x186.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/WhatsApp-Image-2020-12-29-at-5.51.23-PM-260x162.jpeg 260w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 679px) 100vw, 679px\" \/><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3><\/h3>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The activity indexes are estimated using a dynamic factor model. This methodology extracts an unobservable latent common factor of the underlying high-frequency data in the spirit of\u00a0Stock and Watson. The model is estimated with daily figures from Jan. 1, 2020 to Dec. 29, 2020.<\/span><\/h3>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The high-frequency statistics we use have some obvious advantages &#8212; providing a more timely read than traditional data series. They also come with some caveats attached:<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The high weight of travel and mobility indicators may lead to overweighting this type of activity in the index.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The index is not fully comparable across countries as we partly use different indicators for different countries, and the relationship between mobility and output likely varies between countries. A complete set of sources is shown in the table below.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">We don\u2019t have a long enough time series to map the relationship between the activity indicators and GDP.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In a dynamic factor model, component weights adjust as new data become available. Future updates of the index will likely result in small backward revisions to historical readings.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Our model nowcasts missing data points. That can mean backward revisions of past readings as new data become available.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #000000;\">High-Frequency Indicators Included in Factor Model<\/span><\/h3>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-19414\" src=\"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/WhatsApp-Image-2020-12-29-at-5.56.45-PM.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1280\" height=\"484\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/WhatsApp-Image-2020-12-29-at-5.56.45-PM.jpeg 1280w, https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/WhatsApp-Image-2020-12-29-at-5.56.45-PM-300x113.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/WhatsApp-Image-2020-12-29-at-5.56.45-PM-1024x387.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/WhatsApp-Image-2020-12-29-at-5.56.45-PM-260x98.jpeg 260w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/><\/span><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Bloomberg Economics) &#8211; &#8211;\u00a0With the Covid-19 recession rendering many traditional indicators outdated before they are published, Bloomberg Economics is using a set of high-frequency, alternative data to build daily activity indicators. Here\u2019s what the latest data show: As expected, economic activity in several of the world\u2019s largest advanced economies plummeted over the Christmas holidays. An<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19412"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19417,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19412\/revisions\/19417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}