Professional Traders get major information from published data reporting on the state of the worldwide economy. Since the US market is an important factor of the world economy, certain of its data give clues in regards to the future direction of the trading markets. The economy is periodically measured with a non exhaustive list below of different factors :

• Size and Growth : of a country’s economy, or output of its goods and services, is measured by its “GNP” (Gross National Product) and its “GDP” (Gross Domestic Product). The “Industrial production” of a country is a published monthly report. The “Consumption” is another periodic indicator as well as “Consumer Confidence”. Trade figures show the Net Exports of the goods and relate on the health of the local economy.

• Inflation : it is measured with “Consumer price Index”.

• Unemployment : Published monthly affects the market deeply

• Currency : its value against major traded currencies.

• Balance of Payments : from supply and demand, or exports versus imports

• Interest Rates : the trading markets watch the “Fed funds rate”.

• Budget : or government spending.
  At the time, each of these above periodical factors are published, the Markets react and move immediately up or down depending not necessarily if the results are bad, but often enough on whether the results were expected or not. It is fairly similar as to what is happening with equity trading. A company may reports better earnings but its stock goes down because the earnings are not as high as expected!!! And vice versa, a company may report poor earnings and its stock does not move down, because the poor earnings were expected. Welcome to the speculative world of trading !!!