10/07/2022 |
TrendSpider Software Update: New Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED)
Hello, Traders! In our never-ending quest to continuously add value for our subscribers, we’re happy to introduce the addition of FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) to the platform! Details below!
What Is FRED Data?
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis provides a significant amount of macroeconomic metrics, varying from unemployment and mortgage rates to gross corporate profits. FRED is an acronym for “Federal Reserve Economic Data”; their database contains approximately 730,000 metrics. We have integrated 5,000 of the most popular series, which covers 99% of series which have any significant popularity.
How To Access FRED Data
On TrendSpider, you can have this data displayed as a lower indicator. This way, you can correlate the price action with the series of your interest. FRED is available via the ‘Other Data’ button in the top toolbar of the platform. After clicking on the ‘Other Data’ button, simply check the box next to ‘Federal Reserve Economic Data’ as pictured in the image below.
Once added, you’ll see it at the bottom of your charts as a lower indicator. In order to access the data output, click on the three dots in the top left-hand corner of the indicator. Doing so will allow you to access the ‘Series’ input and make adjustments to the data that the indicator presents. There are a few other metrics that can be adjusted, and those are explained here.
Due to the sheer amount of data series offered, users will note there is no scrollable drop-down menu. In order to access a new data series, simply begin typing the series of interest into the search bar. You can input things like ‘Consumer Price Index’ or ‘Household Debt’ and so on.
Benefits And Use Cases Of FRED Data
FRED data can be useful for market participants of all kinds, whether short-term traders or long-term investors. It can be used to gauge sentiment and establish an understanding of macro trends as long-term macro trends do have a generous effect on markets.
For instance, in the image below we see the 2008-2009 bear market and we compare it to the unemployment rate during that time. Conventional wisdom would suggest that once the bear market concluded, so too would the unemployment rate come back down to pre-bear market levels. However, that is not the case, as when price finally did regain the 2008 highs in May of 2013, the unemployment rate was still 2.5% higher than before the bear market started.
This data can also be used to keep track of historically significant values, like household debt. Knowing the amount of debt being taken on at any given time can help traders both gauge sentiment of markets as well as glean an understanding of how unique events, like the pandemic stimulus checks that went out in 2020 and 2021, affect these unique and important data sets.
In addition to this blog post, our founder, Dan Ushman, created this quick video tutorial on how to utilize the FRED data on the platform.
As always, we hope you find this new data useful for your analysis. If you find anything of interest, we’d love to hear from you and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us in chat via the ‘Contact Us’ button in the bottom right corner of your charts!
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