Market Catalysts

How to Read an Economic Calendar

Updated

What an economic calendar is

An economic calendar is a schedule of upcoming data releases and other events that can move financial markets. It answers three questions: what is coming out, when, and why it might matter. Most calendars, including this one, list events by date and time, with a short name, the period the data cover, and some indication of importance.

The data in a calendar come from the organisations that publish the reports: government statistical agencies such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Census Bureau, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, private groups such as the Institute for Supply Management, and exchanges and index providers. Each publisher sets its own schedule; a calendar gathers them into one place. The Census Bureau, for example, publishes its schedule of economic indicators in its Economic Briefing Room.

The columns you will see

Date and time

Times on this site are U.S. Eastern Time, which shifts between standard and daylight time during the year. Most major U.S. economic reports are released at one of a few standard times:

Some events have no single time. Index rebalances and options expirations take effect over the trading day or at the close, so they are listed as all-day events.

If you are outside the U.S. Eastern time zone, convert carefully, especially in the weeks of the year when the U.S. and other countries change their clocks on different dates.

Event name

Calendars use short names, and the same report can go by several. The Employment Situation is “the jobs report” or “nonfarm payrolls”. Personal Income and Outlays is “the PCE report”. Each explainer on this site starts with the official name and the common nicknames.

Reference period

The reference period is the time the data describe, which is not the same as the release date. A CPI report released in mid-month covers the previous month. A GDP release covers a quarter that ended weeks earlier. Weekly jobless claims cover the week ending the previous Saturday.

Some reports also say which version of the data they are. GDP comes in an advance, second and third estimate for each quarter. The University of Michigan survey publishes a preliminary and a final reading each month. The reference period on this site includes those labels where they apply.

Consensus, actual and prior

Many calendars, particularly on financial news sites, show three numbers next to each release:

  • Consensus (or forecast): the median of economists’ predictions, gathered before the release.
  • Actual: the figure published on the day.
  • Prior (or previous): the figure from the last release, sometimes shown with a revised value.

The difference between actual and consensus is what markets react to. A result that matches the consensus is often called “in line”; one above is a “beat” or “hotter than expected” for inflation; one below is a “miss” or “cooler”. Remember that the consensus is itself an estimate, and different news services can report slightly different consensus numbers.

Revisions

Many reports revise earlier figures. The jobs report revises the two prior months; GDP is revised from one estimate to the next; retail sales revises the prior month. A calendar that shows “prior” may show either the originally reported number or the revised one. When the revision is large, it can matter as much as the new figure. The individual explainers describe how revisions work for each report.

Importance

Calendars rate events to help you focus. This site uses levels from 1 to 3, with 3 reserved for events that routinely move markets. The rating is an editorial judgement, not a measurement; the guide to indicators ranked by market impact explains how it is assigned.

Date status

Each date on this site carries a label showing how certain it is:

  • Confirmed: read from the publisher’s own schedule.
  • Computed: derived from a fixed rule, such as the third Friday of the month for options expiration.
  • Tentative: listed by the publisher as subject to change.

Dates sometimes move. The guide to how release dates get moved covers the usual reasons.

Reading a busy week

Some weeks are crowded. The first week of a month often brings the ISM surveys, JOLTS, weekly jobless claims and the jobs report in quick succession. Mid-month tends to bring inflation and retail spending data. Federal Reserve meetings fall roughly every six weeks.

When several releases land at the same time, especially at 8:30 AM, it can be hard to tell which one moved the market. Markets tend to focus on whichever report bears most directly on the question investors are most worried about at the time, whether that is inflation, employment or growth.

Common mistakes

  • Mixing up release date and reference period. A report released this month usually describes last month or last quarter.
  • Forgetting time zones. Eastern Time shifts with daylight saving, and other countries shift on different dates.
  • Reading the headline in isolation. The details, revisions and comparison with the consensus matter more than the headline alone.
  • Treating a calendar as a forecast. A calendar tells you when information arrives, not what it will say or how markets will respond.
  • Assuming the time never changes. Release times are stable for most reports but can be adjusted by the publisher.

A simple routine

A reasonable way to use a calendar is to look at the week ahead, note the events rated most important and their times, read the explainer for anything unfamiliar, and check the publisher’s page if the date matters to you. That builds an understanding of why markets move when they do. It does not tell you which way they will move, and nothing on this site is a recommendation to trade.

For background on what makes an event a catalyst at all, see what is a market catalyst.