Economic Indicators & Data

Leading economic indicators are data that tend to change before the overall economy does, helping forecast future activity.

Lagging indicators are economic data that change after the economy has already begun a trend, confirming its direction.

The yield curve plots interest rates on bonds of the same quality across different maturities, usually government bonds.

The consumer confidence index measures how optimistic households feel about the economy and their finances.

The misery index is the sum of the unemployment rate and the inflation rate, used as a rough gauge of economic hardship.

Okun's law is the observed relationship that each extra percentage point of cyclical unemployment is associated with roughly a 2% fall in real GDP below potential.

The producer price index measures the average change over time in the selling prices that domestic producers receive for their output.

Seasonal unemployment is joblessness that recurs at certain times of year because demand for some work rises and falls with the seasons.

Regression to the mean is the statistical tendency for extreme measurements to be followed by ones closer to the average, due to chance.

Simpson's paradox is when a trend that appears in separate subgroups of data reverses or disappears once the groups are combined.

Coincident indicators are series that rise and fall roughly in step with the overall economy, so they describe where the business cycle stands now.

Purchasing Managers' Index readings come from monthly surveys of supply managers, where a value above 50 means expansion and below 50 means contraction.

PCE Price Index figures track prices for the consumption counted in the national accounts, published monthly by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Core inflation is the inflation rate computed after food and energy prices are removed, because those two components swing sharply from month to month.

Initial jobless claims count people filing for unemployment insurance for the first time in a given week, reported weekly by the Department of Labor.

Nonfarm payrolls measure the net change in jobs on employer payrolls outside farming, reported monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Housing starts count the residential building projects on which construction began during a month, reported monthly by the Census Bureau.

Industrial Production Index values track the real output of factories, mines and utilities, published monthly by the Federal Reserve as an index number.

Capacity utilization is the share of an economy's productive capacity actually in use, stated as a percentage of the output plants could sustainably produce.

Retail sales measure the value of goods sold by retail stores and food services in a month, reported by the Census Bureau in nominal dollars.

Inventory-to-sales ratios compare the goods a business holds in stock with its monthly sales, showing how many months of sales that stock would cover.

Seasonal adjustment is a statistical correction that removes predictable within-year patterns from a data series so consecutive months can be compared.

Base years are the reference periods an index is set equal to 100, so every other reading in the series is a percentage of that period's level.

Index numbers express a value as a percentage of its own level in a chosen base period, which is set equal to 100.

Nominal values are measured in the prices of the period when they occurred, so they mix changes in quantity together with changes in prices.

Real values are nominal figures adjusted for price changes, so they are stated in the prices of one base year and reflect quantities rather than inflation.