Economic data

Every day i check to see what economic data is being released but TBH I don't really understand what most of it means. I know FF gives a small description on each one, but does anyone know where I can find a more in depth summey of what these economic releases actually are and how then affect various markets.

Thanks

I would suggest going to the source for each. For example inventory / sales ratio is released by the St. Louis Fed, so if you want to learn about it go to the St. Louis Fed's website. The Federal Reserve and Bureau of Labor Statistics release a lot of data. Investopedia is a quick and easy source as well but I tend not to trust second hand sources and I can't vouch for their accuracy.

agree with pearljam on where to get more info on what a statistic measures or how an indicator is calculated.

but as far as how it affects markets -- God only knows .

e.g., lets say housing data in the U.S. comes out worst than expected, people are buying and building less houses and shows signs the US economy is weakening -- this is suppose to be bad for the USD. however it rallies. -- possibly because the USD is the reserve ccy of the world and bad US economy means possible global downturn and the USD is a safe place to park cash. -- no one knows how data affects markets, sometimes the large part of the market doesn't care about the news, but traders on the floors just use it to push the market around and take out stops.

I only take note of the economic data that has a high probability impact on the currencies that I am trading. Actually, in terms of technical analysis we have the term called false break out. Thus we also have economic data that does not much effect on the currency movements.

The trader's guide to key economic indicators
By Richard Yamarone

Available on Google Books and can be downloaded from various sites in pdf form.