South Africa

We’ve added additional indicators for the South African real estate market from First National Bank (FNB). They track what FNB describes as “market strength indices” measuring behaviour of buyers and sellers. They’re built based on ratings provided by FNB staff, who are required to rate supply and demand as they perform a valuation on a property. FNB then aggregates these individual ratings into indices. The overall Market Strength index, displayed in the second pane in the chart below, has a reference value of 50 – representing the point where supply equals demand. 

Surprisingly, the real estate market doesn’t seem to have suffered that much during the pandemic, especially when compared with the GFC – when the demand index collapsed. 

Australia

The recruitment experiences and outlook survey compiled by the Australian Jobs and Skills department is now available on Macrobond. The dataset provides insights into employers’ experiences and expectations of the labour market.

In the chart below, we display staff turnover expectations per industry. Employers were asked whether they expect to increase or decrease their staffing over the next three months. We then compiled a net score. 

The results show that all industries expect to add more staff in the coming three months – with the hospitality sector leading the way. 

Chile

We’ve added detailed statistics on the swap derivatives market from the central bank. Chile’s local currency swap market can now be broken down between types of participants (“interbank” trades between banks; “non-residents” i.e. foreigners; and “non-bank residents,” i.e. local non-financial companies). We can also break down the market to examine fixed and variable rates, and several metrics are available, including turnover, maturity, and amount outstanding. 

In the chart below, we focused on the turnover for the “up to two years’ maturity” segment, displaying the breakdown across participants on a 1-month cumulative sum basis. It appears that non-residents are driving the local swap market. Turnover is rising as swap rates decline (as shown in the second panel).