S&P Issues Statement, Publishes Research on Seasonally-Adjusted Home Price Index Data

NEW YORK, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Standard & Poor's, the world's leading index provider and publisher of the closely followed S&P/Case-Shiller(a) Home Price Indices, released a statement and published research today relating to the use of seasonally and non-seasonally adjusted home price index data:

"Economic data which are affected by the time of the year, or the seasons, are often adjusted to remove these effects to make it easier to identify underlying changes in the economy. Seasonal adjustment increases the unadjusted values in weak months and decreases the unadjusted values in strong months to eliminate regular, seasonal patterns while leaving the underlying trend unaffected.

For the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor's reports two data sets: (1) before seasonal adjustment and (2) seasonally-adjusted. In some recent reports, the two series have given conflicting signals, with the seasonally-adjusted series rising month-over-month and the unadjusted series declining.  

After reviewing the data, the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index Committee(b) believes that for the present time, the unadjusted series is a more reliable indicator of U.S. housing trends than the seasonally adjusted series. Therefore, the Committee suggests that reports should focus on the year-over-year changes in U.S. home prices where seasonal shifts are not a factor, and if monthly changes are considered, that the unadjusted series should be used."

A copy of the published research can be accessed by going to: www.homeprice.standardandpoors.com.

Standard & Poor's will announce the February 2010 results for the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices at 9:00a.m. EDT, Tuesday, April 27th.

(a) Case-Shiller® and Case-Shiller Indexes® are registered trademarks of Fiserv, Inc.

(b) The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index Committee includes David Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee – S&P Indices; Karl Case, Professor of Economics - Wellesley College; Maureen Maitland, Vice President – S&P Indices;  Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics - Yale University; and David Stiff, Chief Economist - Fiserv Case-Shiller

About the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices are published on the last Tuesday of each month at 9:00 am ET. They are constructed to accurately track the price path of typical single-family homes located in each metropolitan area provided. Each index combines matched price pairs for thousands of individual houses from the available universe of arms-length sales data. The S&P/Case-Shiller National U.S. Home Price Index tracks the value of single-family housing within the United States. The index is a composite of single-family home price indices for the nine U.S. Census divisions and is calculated quarterly. The S&P/Case-Shiller Composite of 10 Home Price Index is a value-weighted average of the 10 original metro area indices. The S&P/Case-Shiller Composite of 20 Home Price Index is a value-weighted average of the 20 metro area indices. The indices have a base value of 100 in January 2000; thus, for example, a current index value of 150 translates to a 50% appreciation rate since January 2000 for a typical home located within the subject market.

These indices are generated and published under agreements between Standard & Poor's and Fiserv, Inc.

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices are produced by Fiserv, Inc. In addition to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, Fiserv also offers home price index sets covering thousands of zip codes, counties, metro areas, and state markets. The indices, published by Standard & Poor's, represent just a small subset of the broader data available through Fiserv.

About S&P Indices

S&P Indices, the world's leading index provider, maintains a wide variety of investable and benchmark indices to meet an array of investor needs. Over $1 trillion is directly indexed to Standard & Poor's family of indices, which includes the S&P 500, the world's most followed stock market index, the S&P Global 1200, a composite index comprised of seven regional and country headline indices, the S&P Global BMI, an index with approximately 11,000 constituents, and the S&P GSCI, the industry's most closely watched commodities index.  For more information, please visit www.standardandpoors.com/indices.  

About Standard & Poor's

Standard & Poor's, a subsidiary of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP), is the world's foremost provider of independent credit ratings, indices, risk evaluation, investment research and data. With offices in 23 countries and markets, Standard & Poor's is an essential part of the world's financial infrastructure and has played a leading role for 150 years in providing investors with the independent benchmarks they need to feel more confident about their investment and financial decisions. For more information, visit http://www.standardandpoors.com

SOURCE Standard & Poor's