Key Economic Indicators
and what they mean
There are a lot of economic reports and indicators that are announced and released every day on business news programs. These statistics are released by either education institutions, government agencies or by private investment research firms. This information never fails to make the stock market indicators go up or down [sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot]. In this and the next page we try to give you a basic overview of some of this information.
Current Employment Statistics (CES)
The CES is a set of data which provides information on civilian employment. The study uses data from 300,000 companies in over 500 industries. The information available within these statistics include civilian employment and unemployment rates. An employed individual is defined as a full or part time worker as well as temporary and intermittent employees who receive pay for a particular period of time. Also included as employed are individuals on vacation, sick or some other type of leave of absence as well as self-employed unpaid family members and volunteers.
Employment statistics are an early indicator of economic trends. Wage and income figures are indicators of changes in the cost of labor for businesses. The key statistic that is released regarding employment is the changes in total non-farm payrolls. This data is available at:
S&P 500 Stock Index
This is a stock index reported by Standard and Poor's Corporation (a division of McGraw-Hill). A stock index is a market-value-weighted measure of the value of a group of stocks, in this case it is an index of 500 publicly owned stocks. The stocks in the index are chosed based on industry group representation, liquidity and market size. This index was designed to measure the nation's capital stock. Growth of this index indicates future business growth as well as the confidence level of consumers. Daily fluctuations in the index are significantly less telling than the long-term trends that the index can illustrate.
This data is reported at almost any investment or business web site as well as:
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