BSE to soon reel off jobless, consumer sentiment data daily

Asia's oldest bourse BSE today said it's in the process of launching high-frequency job and consumer sentiment data from early next year to help policymakers and companies get a better grip of economy.
The 'India unemployment rate' and 'India consumer sentiment indices', which are being prepared by BSE in collaboration with business information firm CMIE and the University of Michigan, will be released at a high frequency and on a near real-time basis.
The data will be released daily on BSE from a survey of more than 4,000 adults from about 1,200-1,500 households spread across the country.
The consumer sentiment indices consist of India index consumer sentiment, India index of consumer expectations and India index of current economic conditions.

The unemployment rate and consumer sentiment data will be released every morning based on the survey of the preceding day.
Overall, the data are based on a survey of CMIE's panel of 5 lakh persons from nearly 1.58 lakh households across 315 cities and 3,000 villages.

"Currently, the data are already being compiled and tested, and then we want to run it past some academics," BSE MD and CEO Ashishkumar Chauhan told PTI.
"We should have it up by January 2016," he said, adding that the data will be available to the public everyday on BSE and CMIE Websites.
According to Chauhan, the move is likely to help policymakers, investors and corporates analyse the health of the domestic economy. It could also have "significant impact" on determining the monetary policy for the country.

"The issue with the old methods is that they are very slow frequency, data of which come out with a delay and in some sense are not useful for taking decisions by policymakers and investors," Chauhan explained.
"Now, modern technology allows us to collect data at a faster frequency and on a massive scale," he said, adding that India could possibly be the first country in the world to do such an experiment.
According to CMIE MD and CEO Mahesh Vyas, the data will help corporates make immediate business decisions.
"This will help reduce volatility in markets and business at large," Vyas said.