Market Psychology & Herd Behaviour
Market Psychology & Herd Behaviour (21620) measures the Behavioural Momentum Metric — the joint co-movement of price growth velocity and owner-occupier transaction volume velocity. Both accelerating together indicates a self-reinforcing herd dynamic; either decelerating, or the two diverging, indicates that dynamic is weakening.
Primary metric: Behavioural Momentum Metric, Z-Score
Metric typology: product-form composite of two velocity ratios, positive only when price and transaction volume are both rising and negative otherwise.
Tier-1 sovereign sources. Price: ABS Total Value of Dwellings (6432.0), mean price of residential dwellings. Transaction volume: ABS Lending Indicators (5601.0), owner-occupier new loan commitments excluding refinancing, number, seasonally adjusted. Quarterly, N=57 (from Q4 2011). No commercial data dependency exists in the node.
At −0.2802σ, price and transaction-volume momentum sit modestly below their historical joint norm. In the June quarter 2026 the mean dwelling price eased 0.7% and seasonally adjusted owner-occupier loan commitments fell 3.3%. Both vectors contracting together is the pattern the node reads as a weakening herd dynamic; the magnitude is small against the baseline. The reading follows +0.70σ in the December quarter 2025, when the price rose 4.0% and commitments 4.1%, and −0.43σ in the March quarter 2026.
Position. 25.9, ranked against 59 quarters of the node’s record, from the December quarter 2011.
The marker shows the node’s certified Z-score, −0.2802σ for the June quarter 2026, on a scale from −3σ to +3σ. The dashed centre line marks 0σ, the baseline average. The marker is a position on the Z-score scale, not a percentile.
The other five components of Market Sentiment & Behavioural Analysis (21600).
Market Psychology & Herd Behaviour (21620) holds Active status. The certified Z-score is −0.2802σ (Q2 2026, N=57).
