What Is the Economic Calendar?
Let me explain what the economic calendar is—it's essentially the scheduled dates for significant releases or events that could influence the prices of individual securities or entire markets. As a trader or investor, you use this calendar to plan your trades and portfolio adjustments, and to stay alert for any chart patterns or indicators that these events might trigger or affect. You can find economic calendars for different countries for free on various financial and market websites.
Key Takeaways
To sum it up directly, the economic calendar covers those scheduled dates of key releases or events impacting security prices or markets broadly. You, as an investor or trader, rely on it to organize your trades, reallocate portfolios, and identify chart patterns or indicators linked to these events. Remember, most listed events are either projections of upcoming financial or economic happenings or reports on recent ones.
Understanding the Economic Calendar
Economic calendars typically center on a specific country's scheduled economic report releases. Think of examples like weekly jobless claims, new home starts reports, planned interest rate changes or signals, regular updates from the Federal Reserve or other central banks, and surveys on economic sentiment in particular markets, among others.
You, as a trader or investor, depend on this calendar for crucial information and trading chances. Often, you'll enter or exit positions in response to an event announcement or the high trading volume that builds up before it.
Here's a fast fact: the bulk of these events fit into two main categories—projections for future financial or economic events, or reports on those that have already occurred.
Pay attention if you're a trader eyeing short positions; following the calendar can give you an edge. If you predict the announcement's impact correctly, you can open a position right before it and close it shortly after.
Navigating the Economic Calendar
You can access economic calendars for free from financial and economic websites, but they differ by site. Even though they're called 'economic calendars,' the listings depend on the site's focus and what events its users care about.
For instance, many sites list only U.S. events due to their major market influence, while others let you filter to show or hide specific events and build your own calendar.
Here's a tip: build your own by checking websites of agencies that matter most to your investments for their scheduled releases—sites like the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
These free calendars are a good start, but most traders I know customize their own based on preferred trade types, asset classes, and regions. Your customized calendar doesn't have to stick to just government or central bank releases.
For example, if you're into oil, you might build one around major releases from oil-producing regions, plus the U.S. Energy Information Administration's weekly petroleum report and quarterly filings from followed oil companies. This turns your economic calendar into a personalized trading tool, much like an indicator alert.
What Is the Economic Calendar for Forex?
For forex, the economic calendar mirrors those for stocks but adds events and releases from countries involved in the currency pairs you're trading.
How Does the Economics Calendar Work?
Simply put, an economics calendar displays scheduled events, news releases, and regular data drops that influence trading and investing activities.
Are Economic Indicators Released Quarterly?
Some are quarterly, others monthly—for example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out monthly employment data, while gross domestic product comes monthly with quarterly period estimates.
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