Babypips.com economic calendar questions

Beginner Questions
1

Hello,

Can anyone help me understand some abbreviations and meanings of the economic calendar please?
I will be great full to anyone that will take the time to do that.

Thank you :slight_smile:

  1. Event: ISM Manufacturing (Actual 52.9 index) (Forcast 53 index) (Previus 53.5 index)
    Question: What is that unit measuring and what is the index?

  2. Event : Flash HICP-Core
    (Actual 0.6% y/y) (Forcast-(nothing)) (Previus 0.6% y/y)
    Question:does that mean increase of inflation in the eurozone of 0.6% year over year?
    What is this percentage standing for?

  3. Event: Non-farm Payrolls (Forcast 235k)
    Question: is that trading units? Is this a position size? how can i use this information?

  4. Event: GDP (Forcast 0.3% q/q)
    Question: does that mean quarter over quarter increase of 3%?

  5. Event: GDP 0.2% m/m
    Question: month over month increaseof 2%?

further down i found
6. Event: BoE - Net Consumer Credit (Actual 0.8 GBP bn) (Forcast 0.9 GBP bn) (Previus 06 GBP bn)
Question: 0.9 billions OF GBP? If we allready we have the numbers what is the purpose of the event?

2

All I can say is that the acronyms,currencies mean little or nothing to me.What I do use is that if there is any news event I don’t trade 30 mins before it before it and leave a good while after it to see how the market reacts.This may not be of much concern to long term traders as news events,unless extreme like the recent CHF ECB release,won’t affect their decisions.As I trade everyday on shorter time frames I keep away from trading close to any news release.Much as I like BabyPips their news page is a bit limited so I have this one open in my Browser(Pale-Moon rocks) and check it before and during trading sessions,

http://www.dailyfx.com/calendar

Some traders can trade good on the news releases.I’ve not got that right yet so stick to my plan :slight_smile:

3

These indicators that you consider (except Non Farm Payroll) has little up to no impact on markets (maybe in trace amount without a chance to surf on the price waves, induced by those indicators). My suggestion will be to focus on NFP releases as there is a noticeable impact on USD pairs can be seen on 1M chart.

4

If you sign up to myfxbook.com they will message you every time there is one of these announcements. They also explain what impact these have and why

5

@QuidQuoPro, @profitbaby, @eddieb, Thank you very much for your answers and very useful suggestions.

I have to say though, the question was not about why and how to use an economic calendar (I learned that at the school of Pipsology. The question was how to read it technically?

For example what are all these units representing and what can I understand from an actual 52.9 index especially if I have to compare it to a forecast 53 index? What does this number (52.9) actually mean?

What surprises me is that I passed through all the baby pip school from preschool to graduation and through all the quizzes and I found nowhere a chapter or even a paragraph that explains the acronyms and how to interpret numbers on an economic calendar.

6

Thats where myfxbook is good, it explains all this to you as well as if it has a low, medium, or high impact on the currency.

7

@eddieb, Thank a lot i just enrolled to myfxbook there is an excellent broker spread comparison page also, with real time data. Very very useful. Thanks again.

8

Just to add.I’ve noticed that Wednesdays seems to be the busiest day of the week for news events and also the NFP(None Farm Payroll) news comes out on the first Friday of the month if I recall and this usually affects short term markets/Time frames :confused: