What are economic reports?

- When Bill Clinton was president it's rumored he had a sign on his desk that said, it's the economy, stupid. Well, let's face it, we all need to be smart about the economy, and the best way to know about the economy is to be familiar with the important economic reports that are released on a regular basis, like reports about new home sales, inflation, and unemployment. These reports are also called economic indicators and the numbers in these reports can impact how your financial investments will perform. They can determine if your industry will grow and they can impact your job prospects, or if you might lose your job just because of the economy. Economic indicators are reports that are published on a regular basis, like a magazine. So where do these economic indicators, data, and reports come from? Well, they tend to come from one of four different places. First, economic reports are released by governments, like the United States. US government releases reports to a number of different entities, like the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In Europe, a lot of data comes from Eurostat. But some data is also released by national governments, like Germany or France. The second source where data comes from is a central bank. These aren't like the main branch of the bank where you have a savings account. These are the banks that set monetary policy and determine important interest rates for an entire economy. Some central banks include the European Central Bank, the Reserve Bank of Australia, and the US Federal Reserve, also known as The Fed. The third source of data are industry groups and companies. If you work in real estate, you might be familiar with the US existing home sales data that comes from the National Association of Realtors, and if you're in the supply chain world you might be interested in the Institute of Supply Management's purchasing manager index, or PMI, or you might be interested in the material handling industry business activity index that my company, Prestige Economics, produces on material handling in the United States. Finally, there are NGOs, which are important non profits. These also provide useful data and this often includes big global macro data. The International Monetary Fund produces global growth forecasts. OPEC releases monthly oil reports and the United Nations releases important demographic data. Most economic reports and data can be found online and there's a full list of where to find a lot of economic indicators on the exercise file that I've provided with this video. Once you get to know the indicators, like GDP, which is short for gross domestic product, and is an important measure of economic growth, you'll probably want to watch that and a few others regularly. Maybe housing is your thing, or oil inventories, or auto sales. Whatever your jam is there's data for you and the best part is that a lot of this data comes from government organizations that will be happy to talk to you on the phone if you have questions about these reports. It's often your tax dollars at work, so don't hesitate to call the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eurostat, or any of the other sources of government or NGO data. If you can't wait to get started take a look at the list of websites I provided. It's a data smorgasbord, so enjoy the feast.