Economic calendar: U.S. releases, FOMC & Bank of Canada
The handful of scheduled data releases that actually move markets — when they land, what they measure, and what the market has historically done when a print came in like this one.
What the calendar tracks
- Inflation — the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the PCE price index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge.
- Jobs — the monthly U.S. Employment Situation (nonfarm payrolls and the unemployment rate) and weekly jobless claims.
- Growth & the consumer — GDP, retail sales, and the ISM manufacturing survey.
- Central banks — every Federal Reserve (FOMC) and Bank of Canada rate decision, from the banks’ own published meeting schedules, with the post-decision press conferences viewable right in the event view.
Figures come from FRED, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’s public data service: the prior reading before an event, and the actual once it’s released. Release times convert to your local timezone automatically. A few third-party releases (like the ADP employment report) are listed for their timing but marked when the figure itself isn’t tracked from a free source — the calendar tells you that, rather than showing a blank that could be mistaken for “not out yet.”
Reaction history, not just numbers
The part most calendars leave out: context for what a release has meant historically. For major events, SignalStreet shows how the S&P 500 reacted to past prints of the same release, grouped by conditions similar to today’s — so “CPI came in at 3.1%” arrives with “here’s what stocks did the last several times inflation printed near this level.” History is context, not prediction — but it beats reading a number in a vacuum.
Why these releases move your stocks
Rates flow through everything: an inflation surprise shifts expectations for Federal Reserve policy, which reprices bonds, which reprices equities — hitting rate-sensitive groups like technology, utilities, and REITs hardest. The dashboard’s sector views make that chain explicit, tying each sector to the macro inputs that drive it. If you hold Canadian names, Bank of Canada decisions matter doubly: through rates and through the currency.