Expectations Data Provided

PTT, Inc. has characterized some of the economic news releases for performance versus the expected result i.e. higher than, lower than, or as expected.

Admittedly, this is a subjective exercise. Often there is more than one component to a report that market participants focus on in order to come up with a determination of whether a number is “as expected.” For example, in the employment report, although non-farm payroll for the previous month is a primary focus, often some of the auxiliary statistics like the unemployment rate, index of aggregate hours, average hourly earnings, or revisions to previous months, play an important part in determining whether a report is perceived “as expected.” There is no mathematical formula that can take all of these factors into account because what people focus on changes from month to month. For example sometimes in the NAPM report the price components have received more attention than the overall index.

For these reasons, PTT, Inc. has chosen to look at the headline figure and not the sub-components or revisions in order to come up with a determination of whether a particular release is “as expected.” Although this methodology may have its limitations, it is consistent over time. Also it is important to note that if you do not agree with a particular performance versus expectation entry, you can use the database editor to change it. For this reason we have supplied some of the auxiliary statistics (e.g., in the case of retail sales, the previous two months’ revisions) in the Note box of the database editor .

The following is a list of the economic news items that TPA characterizes, what criteria we use to determine "as expected" and any notes. Once again, we emphasize that this is subjective and can be modified to the user’s preference.