It’s taken me about a year, but I’ve finally gotten around to having a look through the 3rd edition of Bernard Baumohl’s book The Secrets of Economic Indicators. Now that I’ve done so, I really which I’d dug in sooner.
This book answers the question a lot of new and developing traders have in terms of what economic indicators are important and where to go to get information about them. It comprises only 6 chapters, despite being over 400 pages long in print format. They are as follows:
Chapter 1 – The Lock-Up, which looks at how indicators are released and lays the groundwork for what’s to come.
Chapter 2 – A Beginner’s Guide: Understanding the Lingo, which is a brief look at what does into economic data and the interpretation of releases.
Chapter 3 – The Most Influential US Economic Indicators is the bulk of the book (over 300 pages). It goes through each of the major releases (and not so major) with a quite thorough discussion. That starts with a quick reference on
- Market Sensitivity
- What Is It?
- Most Current News Release on the Internet
- Home Web Address
- Release Time
- Frequency
- Source
- Revisions
That is then followed by discussion sections
- Why Is it Important?
- How Is It Computed?
- The Tables: Clues on What’s Ahead for the Economy
- Market Impact
Lots of information here, for sure.
Chapter 4 – International Economic Indicators: Why Are They So Important? follows a similar pattern to Chapter 3 in looking at the major non-US data releases.
Chapter 5 – Best Websites for U.S. Economic Indicators is several pages worth of useful websites to find fundamental information and news.
Chapter 6 – Best Websites for International Economic Indicators is the same as with Chapter 5 for international data.
I can’t imagine a better, more complete resource on the subject of economic indicators. If you’re looking at using fundamentals in your trading, you’ll definitely want to give The Secrets of Economic Indicators a look.
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