‍Denmark‍

Statistics Denmark recently started compiling a weekly natural gas consumption series, aiming to provide an early indicator of trends in usage and import dependency. This series, as well as a weekly storage indicator, is now available in Macrobond.

In the chart below, we display weekly natural gas consumption overlaid with the average daily temperature in Copenhagen as a proxy for the whole country. A negative correlation (higher temperatures, less consumption) appears clearly, but the key takeaway from this chart is how it shows the impact of especially cold or warm winters. The winters of 2018-19 and 2020-21 were cold, with a few days of below-zero average temperature, resulting in significant spikes in gas consumption. By contrast, 2019-20 was a warmer winter, resulting in lower-than-usual consumption. Given today’s context in Europe (a spike in natural gas prices and storage concerns ahead of the winter season), a warm 2022-2023 winter would help ease stress – both in the natural gas market and consumers’ wallets. 

Australia

For Australia, we’ve just added airfare indices from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport & Regional Economies. The dataset starts in 1992 for most categories and is broken down between three types of airline tickets: business class, economy, and “best discount.” More information on the methodology can found here.

In the chart below, we looked at the evolution of airfare indices since the beginning of the pandemic. While none of the segments have recovered to pre-Covid-19 levels, they have significantly diverged: “best discount” is nearing pre-pandemic prices, while economy and business class are respectively 24 percent and 34 percent below their February 2020 levels. One explanation could be changed consumer behaviour: the rise of remote work and videoconferencing may be holding back demand for business class tickets.  

Thailand

Inflation is hitting economies across the world in 2022, fuelled by soaring prices for energy, housing and food. However, inflation affects lower-income households differently: for instance, less affluent people are particularly affected by higher food prices. In this context, Thailand’s Bureau of Trade and Economic Indices has begun publishing a low-income consumer price index (CPI) measure, which has a different weighting of inflation sub-categories than the traditional calculation.

In the chart below, we displayed the weights for the two measures of inflation. Food and housing are more important in the low-income CPI basket, while Transportation & Communication has a heavier weighting in the standard inflation measure. 

The figures for July were very similar for both measures: about 7.6 to 7.8 percent year-on-year. Energy prices impact both the housing and transportation categories, offsetting the impact of the different weighting. The surge in food prices has eased in recent months, reducing the impact of the category’s higher weighting on low-income consumers. 

Euro Area

The European Central Bank has calculated a new Composite Indicator of Systemic Stress (CISS) for the euro area, and the series is now available in Macrobond. 

We display the new CISS index in the chart below, comparing it with the percentage the STOXX 50 Index was off a 5-year high (i.e., a 5-year rolling drawdown). It appears that these series are correlated: an increase in the CISS index implies a significant drop for equity markets.