Economics is the most important subject in the lives of individual, companies and countries. A ton of economic reports get released daily for the consumption of the markets. Some of these economic reports have the potential of moving the markets in a big way. For some forex, futures and options traders, trading these economic reports is a way of life. Each market has got its own favorite reports. But some reports have the potential of moving almost all the markets.

Gross Domestic Product, the Consumer and the Producer Price Index, the monthly Employment Reports, the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book and the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) are some of the important economic reports that you should be aware of as a trader. You simply cannot ignore these reports. These economic reports are considered to be important trend setters in different markets.

Now, you can know the date of release of these economic reports by looking at the Economic Calendar. Each month, most of these reports are released by the different agencies that includes both public as well as private at fixed dates. By looking at the Economic Calendar, you can know these dates as it provides the listing of dates when these reports will be released.

Now, FOMC Meeting Minutes are considered to be very important as interest rate changes are decided in the FOMC Meeting. FOMC stands for the Federal Open Market Committee. The other important reports can be the CPI ( Consumer Price Index) and the PPI ( Producer Price Index). Now, you never know how markets are going to react to each one of these economic reports. Some are given more importance by the markets. But this preferrence also keeps on changing.

Now, Non Farm Payroll Report or what you call the NFP Report is the most market moving report in the recent times. This report is released by the US DOL (Department of Labor) and it gives the state of employment in the economy during the last month period. It is released on the first Friday of each month exactly at 8:30 AM EST. There are NFP Report Traders who easily make 150-200 pips at this time within minutes.

The release of employment figures is usually followed by frenzied trading that can last from a few minutes to the entire day depending on what the data shows and what the market was expecting.

NFP Report has become important in the last few years keeping in view the slow economic growth. Now, as the economy shifts gear from slow growth to high growth the state of employment figures can become highly important for the economy. This report is used by the traders, investors and Wall Street Analyst to anticipate any interest rate changes in the economy. In the end, it is the interest rates that stand at the center of the financial universe!

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