Want to get in on the excitement when news releases on economic indicators come out? How do you make sure that you are in on the excitement when economic indicator news is released? You will be glad to know that the release of information on economic indicators follows a defined schedule. This schedule has been refined over many years and is adhered to by those responsible for releasing the information to the public. It pretty much defines a drop dead deadline for those in the government to complete and release the information for the given economic indicator for which they are responsible.
To make things very clear, the agencies responsible for creating the economic indicators typically announces a release schedule a year in advance. The resulting release dates for the most part fall within the same three or four days each calendar month because they are described by occurrences rather than hard dates; for example, the employment situation report can be expected the first Friday of each month, while the industrial production report goes out on the ides of March.
The New York Fed has a typical calendar of releases on their site: http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/national_economy/nationalecon_cal.html
Monthly and weekly indicators pretty much follow the same timing each month. In addition, only first and second tier indicators are provided and the schedule is only for monthly or quarterly indicators.
Why is the order of release of indicator information important month after month? The order is critical because some indicators serve as input to the development of other indicators; that is, some indicators help in the forecast of other indicators. In future posts, we will reveal which economic indicators help to forecast others. The economic indicators also help deliver a logical picture of the economic landscape, with later delivered indicators building upon what can be gleaned from previously released indicators. The relative strength of any given sector can be gauged, in terms of improvement or otherwise. Today, many are watching the housing sector to see if it is improving; ditto customer spending. Each subsequent month brings additional information that helps paint a trend, and may help in terms of providing a hint as to what tomorrow will bring.
Economic Calendars on the Web
The web has numerous resources that you can use to track economic indicator schedule releases. Most will forecast the main economic indicators and even second or third tier indicators. You will want to evaluate if the site has at least these four types of information: the raw numbers pertaining to the indicator, an analysis of the indicator, a consensus forecast pre-announcement, and frequently updated headline news.
You may find that to receive streaming headline news, you will need to join a premium website. What this means is that the moment the indicator announcement is made public, that information is streamed directly to you as a subscriber. The stream in near-instantaneous, because reporters actually get a chance to see the report approximately half an hour before the official release. This affords them time to write their story, but they are, in a sense, “locked up” until the actual published release time. This is why you get the information, as well as an accompanying story, mere moments after the published release time. The agencies responsible for the numbers clear some reporters, which allows them to write the story and simply click “send” so to speak when the release is officially public.
For premium streaming service, you may want to look at Market News International (MNI) and Reuters IFR Markets. In addition to real-time news, they also have calendars and other tools that appeal to people who play the markets. Full service is steep for the casual user such as a beginning investor or a student of the markets.
Other competing, but not quite as comprehensive sites may be a better bet for the casual user. Some of these sites include:
Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/ecalendar/index.html
CNBC: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15839153
MarketWatch: http://www.marketwatch.com/economy-politics/calendars/economic
In our next post, we will look at consensus forecasts, and other news that can go along with, or against economic indicators, in terms of impacting the financial markets.