ach student will pick on of the major data releases and make a 10 minute presentation discussing the nature of the release, its significance, methodology used and recent behaviour of the data. Each team will organize their presentations such as to cover the most important releases in their area and the coverage of the above issues. Assignments will be based on a first-come/first-serve basis.
Here is an a list of important release dates.
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/economic-calendar/
http://www.cmegroup.com/education/econ_calendar.html
http://www.fxstreet.com/fundamental/economic-calendar/
You will need to do a bit of digging to find the relevant background on these stats, but most macroeconomc research shops provide a lot of coverage and discussion of these.
Major Types of Data Releases
1. 1. Labour markets-employment, unemployment, wages, labour force participation, work week, hours, underemployment, layoffs, hiring, unemployment insurance claims (new and existing)
2. 2. GDP and national accounts: GDP preliminary quarterly estimates and revisions, GDP delator, investment, consumption,inventories etc.
3. 3. Industrial stats: Production, shipments,,orders and inventories (monthly)
4. 4. Retail and Wholesale sales –total, autos and other types
5. 5. Purchasing Managers Indexes (PMI’s) (manufacturing and services) (in US the fed and ISM indexes)
6. 6. Prices and Inflation :wholesale, retail, producer, raw materials
7. 7. Confidence Indexes and Leading Economic Indicators
8. 8. Trade: exports, imports, current account balances, foreign investment
9. 9. Durable goods, order, shipments, investment intentions (defense, non-defense)
10. 10. Housing: sales, prices, new construction, permits, new construction, inventories
11. 11. Monetary: money supplies, credit household and business), reserves , fed balance sheet.
12. 12. Energy: oil and nat gas inventories and stocks, production, transport, trade, prices,