Economic Calendar

What Is Economic Calendar

An economic calendar is a listing of scheduled events, informational releases and reports focused on a country or region’s economic activity. It can have a significant impact on local and global financial markets.

The Economic Calendar includes recurring economic reports and data released by government agencies and other research institutions, meetings and press releases of central bank operations and policies, and government funding activity and announcements. The economic calendar also includes scheduled events that do not occur regularly but might impact markets, including congressional hearings, speaking engagements by policymakers, meetings between heads of state, and political events such as elections.

These events can create volatility that increases exposure to risk. By knowing when these major economic events are scheduled, traders are able to adjust their portfolios to suit their investment goals. As well, some assets, such as currencies or industrial commodities, will often reliably move on specific releases.

Some items on the calendar occur regularly--weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly--with varying degrees of potential to have an impact on markets. Investors and financial professionals closely watch these events for indications about the market and economic conditions.

Some examples of events that occur on certain days of the week, month, or quarter are employment and inflation reports, government funding activity and announcements, and central bank meetings.

Other calendar items are more dependent upon current events or larger cyclical conditions. These could include hearings about the appointment of a new central bank chairman, central banker speaking engagements, and meetings of heads of state. Any scheduled event that might impact economic conditions or market activity could be considered part of the economic calendar.

How to Use Investing.com’s Economic Calendar

The default setting of the Economic Calendar at Investing.com includes all major global economic events, broken down by significant economic events, scheduled for the current day, for the world’s largest developed and emerging market economies.

Tabs near the top of the table allow users to screen for other time frames, including results from the preceding day as well as a broader outlook for the current week and week ahead. For greater specificity, use the calendar button to customize filtering by date or dates.

The filter button in the right-hand corner above the table enables users to choose only those events they wish to see on the Economic Calendar, whether by specific release, country, category or degree of importance to markets.

Directly beneath the time frames tabs, is a drop-down that offers the option of setting the calendar to your local time zone. Click on the arrow-head to find and choose a preferred time.

For a deeper drill-down on any specific Economic Calendar event, click on the event name within the calendar. The link takes users to a page dedicated to that event.

It includes most recent release information, a detailed description or definition of the event itself and its significance to markets. In many cases, there’s also a graph or chart that can be customized to provide an aggregated view of previous releases. This can be adjusted to provide shorter or longer-term overviews.