A working reference for the releases that move rates and markets. What each indicator measures, how it is built, when it prints, and how to read it against the cycle. Every figure is live from the Federal Reserve’s FRED database.
The most recent print for the headline releases, pulled at build time from the St. Louis Fed.
Jobs, wages, and the supply of workers. The Fed's maximum-employment mandate.
Consumer and expenditure-based price measures. The Fed's 2% mandate anchor.
PMI surveys of manufacturing and services. The economy's forward pulse.
What households earn, spend, and expect. Roughly 70% of GDP.
The economy's scorecard. Total output across every sector.
Shared methodology behind the indicators.
No release reads in isolation. These are the signal chains that link labour, prices, business activity, the consumer, and growth.
Labour market strength and inflation are connected through wages and the Fed's dual mandate.
Michigan Consumer Sentiment + ISM Manufacturing PMI New Orders → Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) + Retail Sales → Core Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (Core PCE) → Gross Domestic Product (GDP) → NBER recession call.
ISM Manufacturing PMI and S&P Global Manufacturing PMI (New Orders) → Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) → Unemployment Rate → Core Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (Core PCE) → Fed rate decision.
A sustained drop in ISM Manufacturing PMI New Orders often precedes a slowdown in Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) by 1–3 months, as firms cut orders before cutting headcount.
When PMI Prices Paid sub-components rise alongside elevated Core Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (Core PCE), it signals that input cost pressure is feeding through to consumer prices — a hawkish signal for the Fed.
Michigan Consumer Sentiment drops typically precede weakness in Retail Sales and Personal Spending by 1–3 months — soft data leads hard data.
Rising Michigan 1-Year Inflation Expectations can trigger wage demands, which feed into Average Hourly Earnings (AHE) and eventually Core Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (Core PCE) — the wage-price spiral channel.
Personal Income growth above Core Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (Core PCE) inflation means rising real purchasing power, which supports Personal Spending and makes Fed tightening harder to justify stopping.
Real GDP growth is the final scorecard that the leading indicators (PMIs, jobless claims, consumer sentiment) were already predicting. Weak C in GDP confirms what Retail Sales and Michigan Consumer Sentiment signalled weeks earlier; weak I confirms what ISM Manufacturing PMI New Orders flagged.
