economic indicator

A measure of economic activity that offers insight into future business and stock performance. Economic indicators include statistics put out by government agencies, non-profit organizations and private companies, and they provide measurements for evaluating the health of our economy, the latest business cycles and how consumers are spending and generally faring. Investors often set their expectations for stocks and bonds using a wide variety of economic indicators. Financial analysts use these measures to derive forecasts of future cash flows and interest rates, and asset managers use them to determine their asset allocations. There are three main types of economic indicators: leading, lagging and coincident.