9. The big picture: macro, markets and news

The economy

Releases, statistics, inflation and currencies.

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  • 4 lessons
  • 14 min
About this section

The economic numbers that move every market: the calendar of releases with their forecasts, each statistic against its own history, inflation by component, and the exchange rates between currencies.

What you will be able to do

  • Read ECO: time, country, impact, actual, forecast, prior.
  • Read ECST: where growth, jobs, inflation and housing stand against their history.
  • Read CPI by component, with weights and contributions.
  • Read the FXC cross-rate matrix.

Five words to know

actual / forecast / prior
the released number / the consensus / the previous release
surprise
actual minus forecast
CPI
the consumer price index
exchange rate
the price of one currency in another
cross rate
an exchange rate between two non-dollar currencies
  1. 01The economic calendar (ECO)ECO lists upcoming and recent economic releases and central bank events by time, with their impact and the actual, forecast and prior numbers.4 min
  2. 02Economic statistics (ECST)ECST is a dashboard of the main US economic statistics (inflation, labor, growth, housing, rates), each with its latest value and a chart against its own history.3 min
  3. 03Inflation by component (CPI)CPI breaks US consumer prices into their components with each one's weight, its monthly, annualized and yearly change, and its contribution to the headline.3 min
  4. 04Currencies and cross rates (FXC)FXC is a matrix of exchange rates between the major currencies, each cell saying how many units of the column currency one unit of the row currency buys.3 min

Educational material about reading market data, not investment advice.