Basic terms

Nonfarm payroll employment is a compiled name for goods, construction and manufacturing companies in the US. It does not include farm workers, private household employees, or non-profit organization employees.

An index created by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) that tracks homes sales in which a contract is signed but the sale has not yet closed. The pending home sales index is a leading indicator of future existing home sales as it typically takes four to six weeks to close a sale after a contract has been signed.

A measure of price changes in consumer goods and services. Personal consumption expenditures consist of the actual and imputed expenditures of households; the measure includes data pertaining to durables, non-durables and services. It is essentially a measure of goods and services targeted toward individuals and consumed by individuals.

A family of indexes that measures the average change in selling prices received by domestic producers of goods and services over time. PPIs measure price change from the perspective of the seller.

In the U.K., the amount of expenditures less the total receipts taken in by the government. Public sector net borrowing is the measure of fiscal surpluses and deficits along with the amount of new debt created. If this number is positive, it means the U.K. is running a fiscal deficit, while a negative number represents a fiscal surplus.

An indicator of the economic health of the manufacturing sector. The PMI index is based on five major indicators: new orders, inventory levels, production, supplier deliveries and the employment environment.

Quantitative easing (QE) is an unconventional monetary policy used by central banks to prevent the money supply falling when standard monetary policy has become ineffective. A central bank implements quantitative easing by buying specified amounts offinancial assets from commercial banks and other private institutions, thus increasing the monetary base. This is distinguished from the more usual policy of buying or selling government bonds in order to keep market interest rates at a specified target value.

An inflation-adjusted measure that reflects the value of all goods and services produced in a given year, expressed in base-year prices. Often referred to as "constant-price," "inflation-corrected" GDP or "constant dollar GDP".

An aggregated measure of the sales of retail goods over a stated time period, typically based on a data sampling that is extrapolated to model an entire country. The retail sales report captures in-store sales as well as catalog and other out-of-store sales. The report also breaks down sales figures into groups such as food and beverages, clothing, and autos. The results are often presented two ways: with and without auto sales (Core Retail Sales) being counted, because their high sticker price can add extra volatility to the data.

A type of candlestick formation that results when a security's price, at some point during the day, advances well above the opening price but closes lower than the opening price. In order for a candlestick to be considered a shooting star, the formation must be on an upward or bullish trend. Furthermore, the distance between the highest price for the day and the opening price must be more than twice as large as the shooting star's body. Finally, the distance between the lowest price for the day and the closing price must be very small or nonexistent.

Difference in value between imported and exported goods during the previous month. Export demand and currency demand are directly linked because foreigners usually buy the domestic currency to pay for the nation's exports. Export demand also impacts production and prices at domestic manufacturers.

A method of averaging that removes a small percentage of the largest and smallest values before calculating the mean. After removing the specified observations, the trimmed mean is found using an arithmetic averaging formula.

Unemployment Claims: A request made by an individual to the state government to receive temporary payments after having been laid off from a job. The United States Department of Labor keeps track of the number of weekly unemployment claims. It provides both seasonally adjusted and seasonally unadjusted claims numbers and also lists which states had an increase or decrease of 1,000 or more claims. These data are reported in the media as an indication of national and state economic health.
Also known as an "unemployment insurance claim" or an "unemployment compensation claim".