The weekly macro checklist and where the data lives
Lesson 20 · about 10 min
You do not need to read macro commentary. You need twenty minutes a week with primary sources and a fixed set of questions. This lesson gives you the questions and the sources, and it deliberately leaves out the opinion sites, because opinion is what turns a trader into a pundit.
The Sunday checklist
Fill in one line per item. If an item has not changed since last week, write "unchanged." The value of the checklist is in the changes.
| # | Question | Where to look | Your answer this week |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What does the market price for the next three central bank meetings? | CME FedWatch; OIS curves for other banks | e.g. "Hold, hold, 60% cut" |
| 2 | How did that pricing change over the last week, and which release moved it? | Same, compared to last week's note | e.g. "One cut removed after CPI" |
| 3 | Where are the 2-year and 10-year yields, and did the curve steepen or flatten? | Treasury daily yield curve; FRED DGS2, DGS10, T10Y2Y | e.g. "4.10 / 4.35, +25bp, bull steepened 6bp" |
| 4 | Where is the 10-year real yield and the 10-year breakeven? | FRED DFII10, T10YIE | e.g. "1.85 / 2.30" |
| 5 | Which of the four forces did the market trade last week? (Module 1) | Your event log; stock-bond correlation | e.g. "Rates channel: ES fell on strong data" |
| 6 | What is on the calendar this week, with times in my zone? | The calendar at /news/calendar; agency schedules | e.g. "CPI Wed 8:30, FOMC minutes Wed 14:00, claims Thu" |
| 7 | Which of those events could change item 1? | Judgement | e.g. "CPI could remove the June cut" |
| 8 | What is my position through each of them? (Module 5) | Your rules | e.g. "Flat CPI; hold half swing through minutes" |
| 9 | What is the current regime? (next lesson) | Growth and inflation trend | e.g. "Growth slowing, inflation falling: quadrant 3" |
| 10 | Did last week's data change the regime call? | Items 5 and 9 | e.g. "No" |
Ten lines, twenty minutes. Over a quarter it becomes a record of how the macro picture evolved, in your own words, with dates. That record is worth more than any newsletter because you can check it against what you actually did.
Key idea: A weekly checklist of ten questions answered from primary sources replaces macro commentary. The changes from week to week are the signal.
Primary sources
All of these are free, and all of them are the origin of the numbers that the commentary sites repackage.
| Source | What you get | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Federal Reserve (federalreserve.gov) | FOMC calendar, statements, minutes, SEP and dot plot, speeches, the Beige Book, H.4.1 balance-sheet release | The "Monetary Policy" section has everything; statements post at exactly 2:00 pm ET |
| Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov) | CPI, PPI, jobs report, JOLTS, ECI, import prices, with full tables and release schedule | The schedule page lists a year of dates; the release PDFs have the unrounded numbers |
| Bureau of Economic Analysis (bea.gov) | GDP, PCE, personal income and spending, trade | Release schedule published a year ahead |
| FRED (fred.stlouisfed.org) | Charts and downloads for nearly every series in this course, including yields, real yields, breakevens, curve spreads, term-premium estimates, claims | The single most useful site here; free account allows saved graphs |
| US Treasury (home.treasury.gov) | Daily nominal and real yield curves, auction schedule and results, quarterly refunding announcements | Refunding announcements (early Feb, May, Aug, Nov) move the long end |
| ECB (ecb.europa.eu) and ECB Data Portal | Decisions, press conference transcripts, staff projections, euro area statistics | Decisions at 14:15 CET |
| Bank of England (bankofengland.co.uk) | Decisions with vote splits, Monetary Policy Report, minutes | Noon London |
| Bank of Japan (boj.or.jp/en) | Decisions, Outlook Report, Summary of Opinions | Timing varies |
| Reserve Bank of Australia (rba.gov.au) | Decisions, Statement on Monetary Policy, minutes | 14:30 Sydney |
| Eurostat, ONS, Statistics Bureau of Japan, ABS | Euro area, UK, Japanese and Australian data at source | Flash HICP, UK CPI, Tokyo CPI, Australian labour force |
| ISM (ismworld.org) | ISM Manufacturing and Services reports with sub-indices and respondent comments | The comments section is an underused read on business sentiment |
| CME Group (cmegroup.com) | FedWatch tool, futures specifications, holiday schedules | FedWatch is free |
| Atlanta Fed GDPNow, New York Fed Nowcast | Running estimates of current-quarter GDP | Tell you what the advance print is expected to be |
What to skip
Skip anything that tells you what the Fed should do, what the market is "ignoring," or what is "about to happen." Skip anything with a chart that has an arrow drawn on it. Skip macro accounts on social media entirely for the first year. None of this is because those sources are always wrong; it is because you cannot tell when they are right, and reading them replaces the twenty minutes with primary sources that would have given you your own view.
Two exceptions. First, the transcripts and redlines of central bank statements published by major newswires are useful because they are mechanical. Second, once you have kept the checklist for a quarter, reading one or two thoughtful economists to test your view against is reasonable; the checklist gives you something to disagree with them about.
Time zones
Every time in this course is stated in the source's local time, mostly Eastern. Convert once, write it on the checklist, and never do the arithmetic at 8:29. Daylight saving changes on different dates in the US, Europe and Australia, so for a few weeks in March, April, October and November the usual offsets are off by an hour.
Try it: Do the ten-line checklist this Sunday using only the sources in the table. Time yourself. If it took more than forty minutes, you were reading; the target is twenty, and the way to hit it is to bookmark the exact pages.
Recap
- Ten questions, once a week, answered from primary sources; the week-on-week changes are the point.
- The Fed, BLS, BEA, FRED, Treasury, ECB, BoE, BoJ, RBA, ISM and CME provide everything this course uses, free.
- FRED is the one site to learn well; it carries yields, real yields, breakevens, curve spreads and term-premium estimates.
- Skip commentary for the first year; build your own record first, then test it against one or two economists.
- Convert release times to your zone in advance and watch for daylight-saving mismatches.