Cost of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”
Song Items Spike, According To 2010
PNC Christmas Price Index®
According to the 27th annual survey, the price tag for the PNC CPI is $23,439 in 2010, $1,974 more than last year. This is the second highest jump ever and largest percentage increase since 2003 when the index rose 16 percent. That comes on the heels of a modest 1.8 percent increase a year ago.
Despite a sluggish economy and low inflation, the 2010 PNC Christmas Price Index® surged 9.2 percent in the whimsical economic analysis by PNC Wealth Management based on the gifts in the holiday classic, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
“This year’s jump in the PNC CPI can be attributed to rising gold commodity prices, represented by the Five Gold Rings which went up by 30 percent, in addition to higher costs for wages and benefits impacting some entertainers,” said James Dunigan, managing executive of investments for PNC Wealth Management.
Cyber Prices: The Cost of Convenience
For those True Loves who prefer the convenience of shopping online, PNC Wealth
Management calculates the cost of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” gifts purchased on the Internet.
This year, the trends identified in the traditional index are repeated in the Internet
version, with the core rates more than total rates. True Loves will pay a grand total of $34,336 to buy the items online. That is a 9.2 percent more expensive than last year and almost $11,000 more than this year’s traditional index.
True Loves Be Warned: Despite Weak Economic Picture PNC Christmas Price Index® Jumps a Staggering 9.2 Percent In general, Internet prices are higher than their non-Internet counterparts because of shipping costs for birds and the convenience factor of shopping online,” Dunigan said.
Special Present: Updated Web Site
For a historical look at PNC’s index, the updated Web site can be viewed at www.pncchristmaspriceindex.com. This year’s site incorporates interactivity with a pop-up book theme narrated by Dunigan, allowing visitors to enjoy and reveal the 2010 PNC CPI results at their own pace. Each year, educators across the country use the Christmas Price Index to teach economic trends to middle and high school students. With that in mind, this year’s site includes interactive activities, annual results and PNC CPI trends in a Flash presentation, MP3 download, games and much more.
Educators who visit the site will also find lesson plans on the Christmas Price Index from The Stock Market GameTM (SMG), a program of the Securities Industry and Financial MarketsAssociation Foundation for Investor Education (www.sifma.org/education). The enhanced activities are specially designed to help students identify economic trends and to project their impact on this year’s Index, giving them the opportunity to make predictions and check their success against actual results. SMG is America’s premier educational stock market simulation.
Available in all 50 states for grades 4-12, the SMG program teaches children core academic and investment skills.
The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (www.pnc.com) is one of the nation’s largest diversified financial services organizations providing retail and business banking; residential mortgage banking; specialized services for corporations and government entities, including corporate banking, real estate finance and asset-based lending; wealth management and asset management. Follow @PNCNews on Twitter for breaking news, updates and announcements
from PNC.
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