Top 10 Economic Indicators

April 14, 2004 5:59am by Barry Ritholtz

The American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) put up an interesting explanatory description of leading economic reports and releases: The Top 10 Economic Indicators: What to Watch and Why:

“Economists, analysts, and even individual investors want to keep a pulse on the economy. But no one wants to wade through the massive volume of economic statistics that are put out by various entities, both governmental and private. An understanding of the top 10 economic indicators can help you narrow your focus.”

Its a solid overview worth wading into if you are at all interested in a basic economic data points. You can access the full document, in either PDF or HTML versions.

For me, the best part of the page is the links to each of the data sources:

WEB ADDRESSES FOR DATA SOURCES
1)	Real GDP (Gross Domestic Product) U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis www.bea.gov	6)	Current Employment Statistics (CES) U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics www.bls.gov/ces/home.htm
2)	M2 (Money Supply) Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h6	7)	Retail Trade Sales and Food Services Sales U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau www.census.gov/cgi-bin/briefroom/BriefRm
3)	Consumer Price Index (CPI) U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics www.bls.gov/cpi/home.htm	8)	Housing Starts (Formally Known as “New Residential Construction”) U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau www.census.gov/cgi-bin/briefroom/BriefRm
4)	Producer Price Index (PPI) U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics www.bls.gov/ppi/home.htm	9)	Manufacturing and Trade Inventories and Sales U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau www.census.gov/cgi-bin/briefroom/BriefRm
5)	Consumer Confidence Survey The Conference Board, Consumer Research Center www.consumerresearchcenter.org	10)	S&P 500 Stock Index (the S&P 500) Standard & Poor’s Corp. www.spglobal.com

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