Basic terms

It one of the key elements in the Conference Board's analytic system, which is designed to signal peaks and troughs in the business cycle. Since it is an average, the leading index smooths out some of the volatility of individual components, thereby revealing turning points in the economic data more convincingly than any individual component. Generally known as the leading economic index (LEI). Components of the CB leading index include average weekly manufacturing hours, average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance, manufacturers' new orders for consumer goods and non-defense capital goods, building permits and stock prices.

Central banks play a key role in the currency markets because of their power over monetary policy. They have a direct influence over money supply, which in turn affects demand and price of the currency. Through the use of different policies, central banks can try to manipulate the markets so that they can keep their currency at specific levels. Some countries and their central banks try to peg their currency to that of another currency or basket of currencies (for example, China to the U.S.).
The central bank can participate in the forex market by buying and selling their currency at the spot market in order to keep it from changing too much. Another motivation for central banks is to keep the local currency at a specific price in order to make their local economy more attractive for international trade. If a country’s currency appreciates too quickly, it could actually make it less appealing to importers.
Remember that many transactions have to use the local currency. Thus, if currency that is needed rises too quickly, it effectively makes goods more expensive to foreigners, which in turn, hurts trade. To counter this, the central bank may intervene in the market by selling its currency and buying up other major currencies. This in effect, weakens the local currency so as to make it more appealing to foreign importers.
While the exact value of what percentage such central bank transactions take up isn’t known, take note that because these are the banks of national governments, such interventions can have a much larger impact on the market than any single commercial bank.

A measure that examines the weighted average of prices of a basket of consumer goods and services, such as transportation, food and medical care. The CPI is calculated by taking price changes for each item in the predetermined basket of goods and averaging them; the goods are weighted according to their importance. Changes in CPI are used to assess price changes associated with the cost of living.

Current account: The difference between a nation’s savings and its investment. The current account is an important indicator about an economy's health. It is defined as the sum of the balance of trade (goods and services exports less imports), net income from abroad and net current transfers. A positive current account balance indicates that the nation is a net lender to the rest of the world, while a negative current account balance indicates that it is a net borrower from the rest of the world. A current account surplus increases a nation’s net foreign assets by the amount of the surplus, and a current account deficit decreases it by that amount. The current account and the capital account are the two main components of a nation’s balance of payments.