Three Timing Types of Economic Indicators

Leading economic indicators change before the economy changes. Stock market returns are a leading indicator, as the stock market usually begins to decline before the economy declines and they improve before the economy begins to pull out of a recession.
A lagged economic indicator is one that does not change direction until a few quarters after the economy does. The unemployment rate is a lagged economic indicator.
A coincident economic indicator is one that simply moves at the same time the economy does. The Gross Domestic Product is a coincident indicator.

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Federal Finance

These are measures of government spending and government deficits and debts:

Federal Receipts (Revenue)[yearly]
Federal Outlays (Expenses) [yearly]
Federal Debt [yearly].

Governments generally try to stimulate the economy during recessions and to do so t...

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Prices

This category includes both the prices consumers pay as well as the prices businesses pay for raw materials and include:

Producer Prices [monthly]
Consumer Prices [monthly]
Prices Received And Paid By Farmers [monthly]

These measures are all measures of chan...

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An economic indicator is simply any economic statistic, such as the unemployment rate, GDP, or the inflation rate, which indicate how well the economy is doing and how well the economy is going to do in the future.

Investors use all the information at their disposal to ...

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Money, Credit, and Security Markets

These statistics measure the amount of money in the economy as well as interest rates and include:

Money Stock (M1, M2, and M3) [monthly]
Bank Credit at All Commercial Banks [monthly]
Consumer Credit [monthly]
Interest Rates and Bond Yields [weekly and monthly]

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Employment, Unemployment, and Wages

These statistics cover how strong the labor market is and they include the following:

The Unemployment Rate [monthly]
Level of Civilian Employment[monthly]
Average Weekly Hours, Hourly Earnings, and Weekly Earnings[monthly]
Labor Productivity [quarterly].

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Production and Business Activity

These statistics cover how much businesses are producing and the level of new construction in the economy:

Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization [monthly]
New Construction [monthly]
New Private Housing and Vacancy Rates [monthly]
Business Sales and Inve...

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Total Output, Income, and Spending

These tend to be the broadest measures of economic performance and include such statistics as:

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) [published quarterly]
Real GDP [quarterly]
Implicit Price Deflator for GDP [quarterly]
Business Output [quarterly]
National Income...

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Economic Indicators: Relation to the Business Cycle / Economy

Procyclical: This indicator is one that moves in the same direction as the economy. The GDP is an example.
Countercyclical: This indicator is one that moves in the opposite direction as the economy. The unemployment rate gets larger as the economy ge...

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