Market Moving Economic Indicators for the U.S. Dollar

  With the US dollar representing the other side of 90 percent of all currency transactions, US economic data is hands down the most important releases to watch. In our study, we attempt to further narrow this down to the select few that can cause the biggest movements by looking at various time frames to gage both the knee-jerk and slightly more settled reaction.
  Starting with the knee-jerk reaction in the first 20 minutes of trading, unemployment and the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision still win out. However, going down the rankings, we see that the trade balance, inflation and retail sales have become much more important while the report on foreign purchases of US Treasuries has slipped from the third most market moving to the sixth.

 
  The Federal Reserve’s persistent interest rate hikes along with the rapid increases in oil and gold prices has pushed concerns about funding for the US’ current account and trade balances to the back burner.
 Between June 2008 and June 2009 alone, oil prices have increased to a high of 50 percent while the price of gold was up 73 percent at its highest point during the 12 months. Therefore it is no wonder that inflation has shot up in significance.
 
 As overnight lending rates reach higher and higher, market participants are more prone to use price growth (the Fed’s primary issue when determining monetary policy) to analyze how long the steady diet of 25 basis points can last.
 

Top Indicators As Of 2009
1 Non-Farm Payrolls
2 Trade Balance
3 Interest Rates (FOMC)
4 Inflation (CPI)
5 ISM Manufacturing
6 Empire Index
7 Durable Goods
8 Retail Sales
9 Producer Price Index