How to Read an Economic Calendar: Actual, Forecast, Previous and the Releases That Move Markets

The three numbers

Every line on an economic calendar carries the same three numbers. Previous is what the release showed last time. Forecast, or consensus, is the median of economists' estimates for this release, collected by a survey in the days before. Actual is the number when it prints.

Markets do not trade the level of a release; they trade the surprise, the difference between the actual and the consensus. A monthly jobs number of 150,000 is a strong print if the consensus was 100,000 and a weak one if it was 200,000. The level was already in the price before the release; only the gap is new information. The direction of the market's reaction then depends on what the market is worried about at the time: in a year of inflation fears, a strong jobs number pushes yields up and equities down, because it means tighter policy for longer; in a growth scare, the same number is a relief.

Two things complicate the reading. Releases are revised: the previous month's figure is often changed on the same day the new one prints, and a weak current number with a large upward revision to the last one is not a weak release. And some reports carry several numbers at once: payrolls comes with the unemployment rate and average hourly earnings, and the market may react to the earnings figure more than the headline.

Importance

Calendars rate each release for impact, usually on a three-level scale. The rating reflects how far the number tends to move markets, not how interesting it is. A high-impact release is one that regularly moves bonds, currencies and index futures within seconds of printing. The same release can matter more in one regime than another: in 2022 and 2023, the consumer price index was the release of the month; when inflation is quiet, payrolls and the central bank meetings take over.

The releases that move markets

For the United States, the schedule that most of the world's markets trade around:

Elsewhere: the European Central Bank announces its decision on a Thursday at 14:15 Central European time with a press conference at 14:45; the Bank of England at 12:00 London time on a Thursday; the Bank of Japan in the Tokyo morning with no fixed minute, which is itself a source of volatility. Eurozone flash inflation prints in the first days of the month, Germany's ifo business climate and ZEW survey monthly, and the UK's inflation and jobs numbers at 07:00 London time. China's official purchasing managers' indices print on the last day of the month, and the private survey on the first business day of the next.

Central banks observe a blackout period, roughly ten days before a meeting, in which officials give no speeches on policy. Outside it, speeches by voting members are calendar items in their own right.

Time zones

Release times are fixed in the issuing country's local time, so they move against yours twice a year when daylight saving changes on one side before the other. A US release at 08:30 Eastern is 13:30 in London for most of the year, but 12:30 for the two weeks in March and one week in autumn when the two clocks are out of step. A calendar that shows the time in your zone, with the hours remaining until the print, removes the arithmetic.

Reading a release day

Before the print, index futures and bond yields usually go quiet and spreads widen; the minutes before 08:30 Eastern are among the thinnest of the day. At the print, the first move is the algorithmic reaction to the headline surprise and often reverses within minutes as the details are read. The move that holds through the first hour is the one the market has decided on. Revisions to the previous month, the composition of the number and what it implies for the next central bank meeting are what the second reading is about.

On the desk

The economic calendar shows the week's releases by country with their impact rating, the actual, forecast and previous, and the time in your zone or in GMT with the hours remaining, filtered by country and importance. Each country's economic data page keeps every indicator's recent history and the next release with its consensus, beside the news wire filtered to that country.