Management And Accounting Web

Economic Indicators or Measurements

Provided by James R. Martin, Ph.D., CMA
Professor Emeritus, University of South Florida

Capital Markets Main Page | Economics Related Main Page

Many people believe they have a way to predict the stock market. Most of the indicators in the table below are discussed in a book by Constable and Wright.1

Economic Indicators or Measurements and Some Related Links:

Automobile Sales - Wall Street Journal Auto Sales

Baltic Dry Index - Wikipedia definition and Bloomberg

Beige Book - FRB Beige Book and Investopedia

Big Mac Index - The Economist Burgernomics

Book-to-Bill Ratio - Investopedia Definition

Box-office Receipts - Box Office Mojo

Business Outlook - Investopedia

CBOE Volatility Index - Wikipedia definition and Yahoo Finance

CEO Confidence - The Confidence Board

Chain Store Sales, Retail Sales - Investopedia

Consumer Price Index - Bureau of Labor Statistics and Khan Academy Video

Consumer Confidence Survey - The Conference Board

Consumer Sentiment - Federal Reserve Bank of St.Louis

Cooper Price - National Association of Realtors

Crack Spread - Wikipedia definition and Bloomberg

Credit Availability Oscillator - A measure of how easy or difficult it is to borrow money - eHow Money

Credit Spreads: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates - Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Current Account Deficit - Investopedia definition and Bureau of Economic Analysis

Durable Goods Orders - U.S. Census Bureau and Investopedia

Economic Bubble Indicators, e.g., Income growth vs. Housing price growth, and Home prices adjusted for inflation illustrate the real estate bubble - Aftershock

Employment Trends Index - The Conference Board

Existing Home Sales  - National Association of Realtors and Investopedia

Federal Funds Rate - Wikipedia definition and Bankrate.com

Federal Government Budget Deficits and the National Debt - U.S. Debt Clock

Fertility Rates - The World Bank

GAO Fiscal year 2010 Financial Report of the United States Government - GAO U.S. Government Accountability Office

GDP Deflator - Federal Reserve Bank of St.Louis

Global Business Cycle Indicators - The Conference Board

Global Economic Conditions Survey Report: Q4 2011 - IMA PDF - "Overall the stage appears to be set for a renewed global economic downturn in 2012 and most respondents to the [...survey] certainly believe this to be the case."

Gold Price - GoldPrice.Org

Help Wanted OnLine - The Conference Board

Housing Permits and Starts - Investopedia

Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization - Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Institute for Supply Management Manufacturing Survey - Institute of Supply Management

Institute for Supply Management Non-Manufacturing Survey - Institute of Supply Management

JOC-ECRI Industrial Price Index - Bloomberg

Libor - London Interbank Offered Rates - Wikipedia definition and Libor Rate History

London Metal Exchange Inventories - Investment Tools.Com

M2 Money Supply - Federal Reserve Bank of St.Louis

Net Exports - Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

New Home Sales - U.S. Census Bureau

NFIB Confidence Survey - NFIB or National Federation of Independent Business

Personal Savings Rate - Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Philadelphia Fed: The Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti Business Conditions Index - Philadelphia Fed

Philadelphia Fed: Business Outlook Survey - Philadelphia Fed

Presidential Approval Rating - Gallup and Rasmussen

Producer Price Index - Bureau of Labor Statistics

Productivity Report - Investopedia

Oil Inventories - Bloomberg

Real Interest Rates - Investopedia definition and The World Bank

Retail Investment Activity - Investing Answers

Russell 2000 - Russell Investments and CNNMoney

Short Interest - Investopedia definition and Shortsqueeze.com

Survey of Economists - CNNMoney and Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Tankan Survey and Investopedia definition

Ted Spread - Wikipedia - The difference between the interest rates on interbank loans and on short-term U.S. government debt ("T-bills")

Texas "Zombie Bank" Ratio - Wikipedia definition and Amateur-Investor.net

Tic Data - U.S. Department of The Treasury

TIPS Spread (Monitors inflation) - Learning Markets

Trade Balance Report - Investopedia

Underemployment or Slack Investment - Economic Policy Institute

Unemployment rate - and definitions of U3, U4, U5, and U6 - Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wikipedia and Khan Academy Video

Unit Labor Costs Government - OECD and OECD.StatExtracts

Vixen Index - Chapter 50 of Constable and Wright's Book. See footnote 1.

Yield Curve - Wikipedia definition and Federal Reserve Bank of New York

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1 Constable, S. and R. E. Wright. 2011. The Wall Street Journal Guide to 50 Economic Indicators That Really Matter: From Big Macs to "Zombie Banks", the Indicators Smart Investors Watch to Beat the Market. Harper Business. (Contents).

2 Wiedemer, D., R. A. Wiedemer and C. Spitzer. 2011. Aftershock: Protecting Yourself and Profit in the Next Global Financial Meltdown, Second Edition. Wiley. These authors discuss six economic bubbles: The real estate bubble, the stock market bubble, the private debt bubble, the discretionary spending bubble, the dollar bubble, and the government debt bubble. Their analysis indicates that these bubbles are not going to re-inflate. (Book Review).