"Executives and managers hear or read headlines about recent economic data nearly every business day. Most important economic statistics are the products of programs designed to collect and analyze data to report summary results at regular intervals. Properly interpreted, these economic indicators provide useful barometers for different aspects of the economy and identify trends that aid better planning decisions. Economic indicators are available at the national level, state level, and even the regional and municipal levels. This text focuses on economic indicators for the overall U.S. economy, identifying major categories of economic indicators and describing the key indicators in each of the categories. Most key economic indicators are reported promptly on the Internet and are provided as formatted time series that can be readily downloaded and analyzed. This text will include links to the sources for key economic indicators, as well as websites that maintain calendars of upcoming announcements and consensus forecasts of the indicators shortly prior to a formal announcement"--Abstract.
This text provides a thorough explanation of the non-financial economic indicators that are closely watched by the financial markets. It details how the indicators are compiled and what the statistical significance is for the economy, as well as presenting insights into interpreting the data.
Analyze key indicators more accurately to make smarter market moves The Economic Indicator Handbook helps investors more easily evaluate economic trends, to better inform investment decision making and other key strategic financial planning. Written by a Bloomberg Senior Economist, this book presents a visual distillation of the indicators every investor should follow, with clear explanation of how they're measured, what they mean, and how that should inform investment thinking. The focus on graphics, professional application, Bloomberg terminal functionality, and practicality makes this guide a quick, actionable read that could immediately start improving investment outcomes. Coverage includes gross domestic product, employment data, industrial production, new residential construction, consumer confidence, retail and food service sales, and commodities, plus guidance on the secret indicators few economists know or care about. Past performance can predict future results – if you know how to read the indicators. Modern investing requires a careful understanding of the macroeconomic forces that lift and topple markets on a regular basis, and how they shift to move entire economies. This book is a visual guide to recognizing these forces and tracking their behavior, helping investors identify entry and exit points that maximize profit and minimize loss. Quickly evaluate economic trends Make more informed investment decisions Understand the most essential indicators Translate predictions into profitable actions Savvy market participants know how critical certain indicators are to the formulation of a profitable, effective market strategy. A daily indicator check can inform day-to-day investing, and long-term tracking can result in a stronger, more robust portfolio. For the investor who knows that better information leads to better outcomes, The Economic Indicator Handbook is an exceptionally useful resource.
We are bombarded with economic numbers: unemployment, retail sales, inflation, GDP—the list goes on and on. Some analyst or another is constantly telling us about an obscure statistic that is the key to our future, or is apparently the indicator that the "Fed" will be using to key off its decisions. With economic numbers playing such a central role in the national and world dialogue on policy and markets, and spilling over into the political arena, a broad review of what they are all about is timely. This book reviews the critical US economic data, and how one may put the numbers into an intellectual structure that will depict evolving economic reality. The work is aimed at those who want and need to get some understanding about how the data contributes to a big picture of the economy and guides policy. The objective is for the reader to grasp the overall logic of the data—how each piece of the puzzle contributes to our understanding of the overall economy. This is the way the Fed looks at the numbers. There are other books that go through the economic numbers, but they do so in a "bottom-up" fashion, describing a series in some detail and adding something about how financial markets may respond to it. This book naturally has considerable discussion of series, but views them as part of the overall mosaic, not items of fundamental interest in themselves.
An expert helps readers understand what the big economic picture means for their money—and how to respond. Today's investors must play an active role in managing their money. This guide introduces the leading U.S. economic indicators and shows how to use them to make better investment decisions. Indicators covered include: national output; employment; consumer reports; housing and construction; and inflation. • The recession: the days of putting money in an index fund and forgetting about it are over • Most books on economic indicators are too academic, aimed at professionals, and written before the financial crisis • Author with over 25 years of tracking the economy
"A virtual bible of how economic indicators are constructed andused. Important tidbits of history are mixed with present-daynuances to explain why we should care about all the economicindicators." ?Allen Grommet, Senior Economist, Cambridge Consumer Credit Index "This book is an indispensable resource for anyone that wants apractical understanding of the economy and how it is measured. Theinformation is clear, concise, and will help investors at alllevels leverage the vast amount of economic data available." ?Jesse Harriott, PhD, Vice President of Research, MonsterWorldwide, Inc. This updated guide to economic indicators -- what they are andwhat they really mean -- covers all major economic indicators, fromGDP to the consumer price index. You'll not only learn what keyeconomic measurements are and how to read and interpret them,you'll discover how to use them to make better, more-informedfinancial, trading, and investing decisions.
Every day, stocks, bonds, and currencies bounce wildly in response to new economic indicators. Money managers obsess over those statistics, because they provide crucial clues about the future of the economy and the financial markets. Now "you "can use these indicators to make smarter investment decisions, just like the professionals do.You don't need an economics degree, or a CPA... just this easy-to-use book. Former "TIME "Magazine senior economics reporter Bernard Baumohl has done the impossible: he's made economic indicators "fascinating." Using real-world examples and stories, Baumohl illuminates every U.S. and foreign indicator that matters.Where to find them.What they look like. What the insiders know about their track records. And "exactly "how to interpret them. Whether you're an investor, broker, portfolio manager, researcher, journalist, or student, you'll find this book indispensable.Nobody can predict the future with certainty. But "The Secrets of Economic Indicators "will get you as close as humanly possible. What the numbers "really "mean... ...to stocks, bonds, rates, currencies, and you Ahead of the curve: spotting turning points Calling recessions and recoveries in time to profit from them Leading indicators: where's the economy "really "heading Decoding initial unemployment claims, housing starts, the yield curve, and other predictors Beyond the borders Why foreign indicators are increasingly important-and how to use them Making sense of indicators in conflict What to do when the numbers disagree Finding the data Free web resources for the latest economic dataInvestments ""This is the most up-to-date guide to economic indicators and their importance to financial markets in print. For anyone trying to follow the economic data, this should be next to your "computer so that you can understand and find the data on the Internet." David Wyss, Chief Economist, Standard and Poor's ""I find Baumohl's writing fascinating. Just about anyone who's serious about understanding which way the economy is headed will want to read this book. It could be a classic."" Harry Domash, Columnist for MSN Money and Publisher, Winning Investing Newsletter ""Every business person or investor should keep a copy of Baumohl's book close-at-hand. It is great, at long last, to have someone who has eliminated what may have been so perplexing to so many and to have done so with such remarkable clarity."" Hugh Johnson, Chief Investment Officer, First Albany ""Bernie Baumohl has written a "must read" educational and reference book that every individual investor will find indispensable for watching, monitoring, and interpreting the markets."" Allen Sinai, President and Chief Global Economist, Decision Economics, Inc. ""Baumohl has a gift for taking a complicated subject and allowing it to read like a fast-moving novel. I recommend this book if you care about your future finances."" Morris E. Lasky, CEO, Lodging Unlimited, Inc.-manager and consultant for $6 billion in hotel assets; Chairman, Lodging Conference; Chairman, International Hotel Conference ""I think this is an excellent book. It's well written, accessible to a variety of readers, deals with an interesting and important subject, and covers the topic well. It deserves to get a lot of notice and use."" D. Quinn Mills, Alfred J. Weatherhead Jr., Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School "The fascinating, plain-English guide to economic indicators: what they mean, and how to use them." "Unemployment. Inflation. Consumer confidence. Retail sales.".. Every morning brings new economic statistics. Which economic indicators really matter? What do they mean for stocks, bonds, interest rates, currencies..."your portfolio?" How can you use them to make faster, smarter investment decisions? Simple, clear, non-technical, friendly, "usable."..the "only "book of its kind! By former renowned "TIME "Magazine economics journalist Bernard Baumohl. (c) Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.
Introduction.Big data for twenty-first-century economic statistics: the future is now /Katharine G. Abraham, Ron S. Jarmin, Brian C. Moyer, and Matthew D. Shapiro --Toward comprehensive use of big data in economic statistics.Reengineering key national economic indicators /Gabriel Ehrlich, John Haltiwanger, Ron S. Jarmin, David Johnson, and Matthew D. Shapiro ;Big data in the US consumer price index: experiences and plans /Crystal G. Konny, Brendan K. Williams, and David M. Friedman ;Improving retail trade data products using alternative data sources /Rebecca J. Hutchinson ;From transaction data to economic statistics: constructing real-time, high-frequency, geographic measures of consumer spending /Aditya Aladangady, Shifrah Aron-Dine, Wendy Dunn, Laura Feiveson, Paul Lengermann, and Claudia Sahm ;Improving the accuracy of economic measurement with multiple data sources: the case of payroll employment data /Tomaz Cajner, Leland D. Crane, Ryan A. Decker, Adrian Hamins-Puertolas, and Christopher Kurz --Uses of big data for classification.Transforming naturally occurring text data into economic statistics: the case of online job vacancy postings /Arthur Turrell, Bradley Speigner, Jyldyz Djumalieva, David Copple, and James Thurgood ;Automating response evaluation for franchising questions on the 2017 economic census /Joseph Staudt, Yifang Wei, Lisa Singh, Shawn Klimek, J. Bradford Jensen, and Andrew Baer ;Using public data to generate industrial classification codes /John Cuffe, Sudip Bhattacharjee, Ugochukwu Etudo, Justin C. Smith, Nevada Basdeo, Nathaniel Burbank, and Shawn R. Roberts --Uses of big data for sectoral measurement.Nowcasting the local economy: using Yelp data to measure economic activity /Edward L. Glaeser, Hyunjin Kim, and Michael Luca ;Unit values for import and export price indexes: a proof of concept /Don A. Fast and Susan E. Fleck ;Quantifying productivity growth in the delivery of important episodes of care within the Medicare program using insurance claims and administrative data /John A. Romley, Abe Dunn, Dana Goldman, and Neeraj Sood ;Valuing housing services in the era of big data: a user cost approach leveraging Zillow microdata /Marina Gindelsky, Jeremy G. Moulton, and Scott A. Wentland --Methodological challenges and advances.Off to the races: a comparison of machine learning and alternative data for predicting economic indicators /Jeffrey C. Chen, Abe Dunn, Kyle Hood, Alexander Driessen, and Andrea Batch ;A machine learning analysis of seasonal and cyclical sales in weekly scanner data /Rishab Guha and Serena Ng ;Estimating the benefits of new products /W. Erwin Diewert and Robert C. Feenstra.
Developed fifty years ago by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the analytic methods of business cycles and economic indicators enable economists to forecast economic trends by examining the repetitive sequences that occur in business cycles. The methodology has proven to be an inexpensive and useful tool that is now used extensively throughout the world. In recent years, however, significant new developments have emerged in the field of business cycles and economic indicators. This volume contains twenty-two articles by international experts who are working with new and innovative approaches to indicator research. They cover advances in three broad areas of research: the use of new developments in economic theory and time-series analysis to rationalise existing systems of indicators; more appropriate methods to evaluate the forecasting records of leading indicators, particularly of turning point probability; and the development of new indicators.
Everything you need to easily get a handle on economic indicators In today's volatile, often troubling economic landscape, there are myriad statistics and reports that paint an economic picture that can sometimes resemble a work by Jackson Pollock. These complex and often-conflicting reports could vex even the savviest investor. Economic Indicators For Dummies explains how to interpret and use key global economic indicators to make solid investments, aid in business planning, and help develop informed decisions. In plain English, it breaks down the complex language and statistics to help you make sense of this critical information. You'll discover how to interpret economic data within the context of other sometimes-conflicting reports and statistics, and use the information to make profitable decisions. You'll understand the meaning of such data as employment indices and housing and construction stats and how they affect stocks, bonds, commodities and international markets . . . and how you can use these statistics to make investment decisions as well as plan strategic goals for business growth. Economic Indicators For Dummies breaks down dozens of statistics and patterns to give you a better understanding of how various sources of data and information can be used. Breaks down jargon and statistical concepts Covers how to use publicly available economic indicators to better position your portfolio, improve returns, and make sensible, long-range business plans Discusses the reliability and timeliness of the collected data, while helping investors prioritize the flow of economic information to avoid information overload Whether you're an investor, economics student, or business professional involved in making key strategic decisions for your company, Economic Indicators For Dummies has you covered.
