Macro
Growth, inflation, and policy set the weather for every asset, and macro is how you read it.
These explainers cover GDP, inflation through CPI, PPI, and PCE, interest rates, the Fed funds rate, and how the Federal Reserve and FOMC set policy, then the yield curve and its inversions, Treasury yields across maturities, real versus nominal rates, and quantitative easing and tightening.
Investing With Purpose connects each data release to the market reaction it tends to produce, so a print stops being noise and becomes signal.
This is the lens professionals use to read the cycle and position across stocks, bonds, currencies, and commodities.
Build the literacy here and the rest of markets gets easier to interpret.
Gross Domestic Product is the headline number for the size of a country's economy. It measures the market value of all…
Inflation is a sustained rise in the general price level of goods and services. Three official U.S. indexes measure it…
An interest rate is the price of money over time. If you borrow, it is the rate you pay. If you lend or save, it is the…
The federal funds rate is the overnight interest rate at which US banks lend reserve balances to each other. It is the…
The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the United States. It sets monetary policy, supervises banks, and manages…
The business cycle is the recurring pattern of expansion and contraction in aggregate economic activity. Understanding…
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is the body inside the Federal Reserve that actually votes on US monetary…
The yield curve is the line you get when you plot US Treasury yields against their maturities, from 1-month bills out…
US Treasury yields are the interest rates the federal government pays to borrow across the maturity spectrum. They are…
The **nominal rate** is the headline interest rate you see quoted. The **real rate** is what is left after you strip…
**Quantitative easing (QE)** is when a central bank buys large quantities of long-dated bonds to push down long-term…
Each month the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the **Employment Situation** report, covering the unemployment rate…
The **Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI)** is a monthly survey of supply-chain executives that tracks whether business…
**Initial jobless claims** count the number of people who filed a new unemployment-insurance claim during the prior…
Consumer sentiment surveys translate how American households feel about their finances and the broader economy into a…
A credit spread is the extra yield a corporate bond pays over a Treasury of the same maturity. It is the market's price…
The Cboe Volatility Index, better known as the VIX, measures the market's expectation of 30-day forward volatility on…
Recession and stagflation are often used as if they are interchangeable labels for bad economies, but they describe…
Foreign exchange, or FX, is the market where one currency is traded for another. It is the largest financial market on…
The Dollar Index, ticker DXY, measures the value of the US dollar against a basket of six developed-market currencies.…
A commodity super-cycle is a multi-decade swing in broad commodity prices driven by structural demand shocks meeting…
Sector rotation is the idea that equity sectors take turns leading the market as the economy moves through expansion…
Geopolitical risk is the threat, realisation, and escalation of adverse events tied to wars, terror, and state-to-state…
The balance of trade records the value of a country's exported goods and services minus its imports. The current…
An economic calendar is a schedule of upcoming data releases and central-bank decisions. It is the map traders use to…
The Taylor rule is a simple formula that says where the central bank's policy rate should sit given current inflation…
Purchasing power parity is the idea that exchange rates should eventually adjust so a given basket of goods costs the…
The Phillips curve is the inverse relationship between unemployment and the rate of wage or price inflation. It is the…
SOFR, the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, is the dollar benchmark that replaced LIBOR in mid-2023. Understanding SOFR…
The repo market is where banks, dealers, money market funds, and hedge funds borrow and lend cash overnight against…
Shadow banking is the catch-all term for financial institutions that perform bank-like credit intermediation, maturity…
The CPI consumer price index is the most watched inflation report in the United States. It tracks the average change…
The PCE price index is the inflation measure the Federal Reserve uses to set its 2 percent target. Published by the…
The producer price index PPI measures inflation from the seller's side of the economy. Instead of the prices households…
The GDP advance estimate is the first official measure of how fast the US economy grew in a calendar quarter. The…
The GDP second estimate is the middle of the three quarterly growth readings the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)…
The GDP third estimate is the Bureau of Economic Analysis's most complete reading of a quarter's growth, published…
The GDPNow Atlanta Fed nowcast is a real-time estimate of current-quarter GDP growth published by the Federal Reserve…
The ISM Manufacturing PMI is a monthly survey-based index that tracks whether U.S. factory activity is expanding or…
The ISM Services PMI tracks whether U.S. service-sector activity is expanding or contracting each month. Because…
The S&P Global Manufacturing PMI is a monthly survey-based index of factory activity, compiled in dozens of countries…
The S&P Global Services PMI is a monthly index that tracks activity in the service sector across many countries on a…
The S&P Global Composite PMI blends the manufacturing and services surveys into one number that gauges activity across…
The Empire State Manufacturing Survey is a monthly Federal Reserve Bank of New York poll of factory executives in New…
The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index is a monthly survey that asks factory executives in the mid-Atlantic whether…
The Chicago PMI business barometer is a monthly gauge of business conditions in the Chicago region, covering both…
The Dallas Fed manufacturing survey is a monthly poll that asks Texas factory executives whether output, orders, and…
The Kansas City Fed manufacturing survey is a monthly poll of factory executives across the central plains states. It…
The Richmond Fed manufacturing survey is a monthly poll of factory executives in the mid-Atlantic and southeast. It…
Nonfarm payrolls is the headline jobs number in the monthly US employment report. It counts how many jobs employers…
JOLTS is the monthly report that counts open jobs, hires, quits, and layoffs across the US economy. The JOLTS job…
The employment cost index measures how much it costs employers to pay workers, holding the mix of jobs constant. It is…
The ADP National Employment Report is a monthly count of private-sector jobs built from real payroll records. It…
The unemployment rate U-3 U-6 pairing covers the official jobless rate and a broader measure that catches people the…
The labor force participation rate measures the share of the working-age population that is either employed or actively…
Average hourly earnings wage growth is the most closely watched measure of how fast paychecks are rising in the United…
Average weekly hours worked tracks how many hours the typical employee logs each week on private payrolls. It is a…
The Challenger job cuts report counts how many layoffs U.S. employers announce each month. Compiled by the outplacement…
Initial jobless claims count how many people filed for unemployment benefits for the first time in a given week.…
Continuing jobless claims count the number of people still receiving unemployment benefits week after week. Where…
Advance retail sales measures the total receipts of retail and food service stores in the United States each month.…
The retail sales control group is a narrower slice of the monthly retail sales report, built to feed directly into the…
The industrial production index measures the real output of the nation's factories, mines, and utilities. Published…
The capacity utilization rate measures how much of the nation's industrial capacity is actually being used. Published…
Durable goods orders measure new orders placed with US factories for products built to last 3 years or more, from cars…
Factory orders measure the total dollar value of new orders placed with US manufacturers each month, covering both…
Building permits count the new privately owned housing units that local governments authorize for construction each…
Housing starts measure the number of new residential construction projects that begin in a given month, counted at the…
Existing home sales count completed resale transactions of previously owned homes, including single-family houses,…
New home sales count newly built single-family homes sold each month, recorded at the moment a buyer signs a sales…
The pending home sales index measures the volume of signed real estate contracts for existing homes that have not yet…
The Case-Shiller home price index measures changes in US single-family home values using a repeat-sales method that…
The FHFA house price index measures changes in single-family home values using a repeat-sales method, but it draws only…
The NAHB housing market index gauges how confident home builders feel about current and future single-family home…
Conference Board consumer confidence measures how Americans feel about current business and job conditions and what…
University of Michigan consumer sentiment is a monthly survey that scores how households view their finances and the…
NFIB small business optimism is a monthly index that measures how owners of small US firms feel about the economy and…
The trade balance in goods and services is the difference between what the United States sells to the rest of the world…
Wholesale inventories measure the value of goods sitting in the warehouses of US distributors, the middlemen between…
Business inventories combine the stock held by manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers into one economy-wide measure…
Covered interest parity is the no-arbitrage condition linking interest rates, spot exchange rates, and forward exchange…
Uncovered interest parity says the currency with the higher interest rate should depreciate by exactly the interest…
The Fed discount window is the standing facility through which the Federal Reserve lends reserves directly to eligible…
The Treasury General Account is the U.S. Treasury's operating checking account, held at the Federal Reserve. Its daily…
The overnight reverse repo facility is a standing Fed tool that pays a fixed interest rate to a defined list of…
Quantitative easing and quantitative tightening are the two directions the Federal Reserve's balance sheet can be…
Yield curve control (YCC) is a monetary policy in which a central bank commits to buying whatever quantity of…
Fiscal dominance is a regime in which the path of government debt and deficits forces the central bank's hand, so that…
The Phillips curve is the empirical and theoretical relationship between unemployment and inflation. NAIRU, the…
The Taylor rule is a simple formula that prescribes a central bank's policy interest rate as a function of how far…
The core CPI ex food energy index is the inflation number professionals trust most for reading the underlying trend. It…
The CPI shelter component OER is the single heaviest piece of the Consumer Price Index, and it shapes the inflation…
The supercore CPI services ex-shelter measure has become one of the most closely watched inflation gauges among…
The core PCE Fed preferred gauge is the single number that matters most to U.S. monetary policy. It takes the broad…
The core PPI ex food energy index strips the volatile pieces out of producer prices to expose the underlying cost trend…
The import price index measures how the prices of goods and services entering the United States change over time.…
The export price index measures how the prices of goods and services the United States sells abroad change over time.…
Productivity unit labor costs are a paired quarterly release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that shows how much…
The current account balance is the broadest measure of a country's transactions with the rest of the world in a given…
Treasury auction results show how strongly investors bid when the US government sells new debt. The headline metric,…
TIC Treasury international capital flows track how much money foreigners move into and out of US stocks, bonds, and…