I have to rant. A couple of recent blog post headlines touched on a sore spot with me in terms of misrepresentation of data. Had it been just one, I probably would have let it slide.
Here’s the first one:
Revised Q3 GDP Drops By 20% To 2.0%, Misses Expectations Of 2.5% By 2 Standard Deviations
This is from Zero Hedge. Can you see the issue here?
GDP did not drop by 20%. The growth rate of GDP was revised lower by 20% (to 2.0% from 2.5%). The headline, however, suggests that the Q3 GDP growth rate was -20%, which would be horrific.
Along the same lines, here’s the second headline:
Canada Retail Sales Doubles in September
This one comes from the Oanda blog. Again, it’s a differentiation between nominal and rate of change. Canadian retail sales most definitely did not double in September. They were, in fact, up 1% on the month. This was double the growth rate from August.
If you’ve read Zero Hedge you’ll know they have a tendency toward hyperbolic headlines there, so I can’t say I’m really surprise at the whole 20% thing. Oanda, though, tends to be more straightforward on their blog, so a headline like this was something of a surprise. It just goes to show that lack of attention to detail can trip up just about anyone.
If you like this post or find it informative, I encourage you to sign-up for the newsletter.
Also subscribe to the blog feed and/or follow via Facebook or Twitter.
About the Author
John Forman, author of this blog, has traded for more than 20 years, is a professional market analyst, and authored The Essentials of Trading. He is an active participant in trading forums, consults for trading related businesses, as published literally dozens of trading articles, and has been quoted in a number of books and in the media.
** See John’s full bio.
Similar Posts:
- Further Updated US Forex Broker Figures
How do you hedge in the forex market?
Update Digest for Week of 2011-11-26
