Introduction
Investors use the economic calendar to track market trends, such as economic indicators and monetary policy decisions. Usually, an economic calendar is displayed as a chart showing a particular year's days, weeks, and months. Every day, several market-moving events are listed in chronological order, giving investors time to research and anticipating specific interest releases.
Importance of Economic Calendar
Each trader needs to follow the latest events through the economic calendar as it acts as an indication of upcoming events and possible market changes. The economic calendar covers information on the inflation rate, consumer confidence index, immovable property index, PMI manufacturing, construction spending, retail sales, trade balance, and key announcements for the United States, Great Britain, Japan, and other developed countries.
Therefore, the most important financial events can be tracked and used to forecast and determine how to behave in the event of future uncertainty and market change.
Where To Find It?
Financial calendars can be found on financial and economic websites, free of charge. Nevertheless, these calendars differ from site to site. While they are referred to as the "economic calendar", the actual calendar listings depend on the website's focus and the activities that website users are interested.
For example, on many websites, the economic calendar lists only events in a specific country as these events have a significant market impact. Other sites allow the user to build their own economic calendar using filters to display or hide events.
Though free calendars can be useful, most traders design their own calendar based on the types of trades, asset classes, and regions they prefer. Also, there is no need to limit a customized economic calendar to releases from government and central banks.
For example, a trader can create an economic calendar around the major oil-producing regions while also incorporating the weekly petroleum status report of the Energy Information Administration and the quarterly filing dates of the oil sector companies. In this way, as an indicator alert, an economic calendar becomes a customizable trading tool.