National Debt
Statistics for the current status and change in the federal debt, surplus, trade deficit, and other statistics are reported in billions of dollars, in this format:

Debt Business and Economic Measurements
Overall economic information has much to do with the stock market, because the economy directly affects every listed company's future profits. Of equal interest to stock market investors is the overall business information found in the indicators. Economic statistics are reported in a variety of ways. Economic growth—durable goods produced, gross domestic product, and industrial output, for example—are reported against an index, so that the report shows a percentage increase or decrease. Other forms of growth, such as personal income or fixed investments, are reported in dollar amounts. Some factors are reported in the number of units, such as domestic autos sold.
The major economic information is compiled and reported in the form of leading economic indicators. There are 11 indicators: average monthly hours of production, average weekly initial claims for state unemployment insurance, manufacturers' new orders for consumer goods and raw materials, vendor performance, contracts for plant and equipment, new private housing permits, changes in manufacturing and trade inventory levels, changes in sensitive materials prices, stock prices, the money supply, and an index of consumer expectations.
The 11 leading economic indicators provide a broad view of trends in the economy, and they also foretell changes in other indicators. For example, checking new housing permits anticipates housing sales a few months away; changes in inventory levels anticipates future manufacturing and sales activity.
Another grouping is referred to as laggmg economic indicators. The Department of Commerce publishes a listing including seven_key lagging economic indicators: average duration of unemployment, ratio of manufacturing and trade inventories to sales, changes in the index of labor costs per unit of output, average prime rate charged by banks, commercial and industrial loans outstanding, ratio of consumer installment credit outstanding, and the change in CPI for services.
The seven lagging economic indicators do not provide much in the way of information you can use to predict the mood of the stock market. However, economists and analysts see the lagging indicators as a means for confirming trends indicated in the leading indicators.
In the financial press, comparative reports for these indicators and related economic results are reported in comparative form, with the latest outcomes compared to the preceding ones and to the same outcomes one year before.
KEY POINT
Lagging economic indicators are not directly useful for stock market analysis, but they are used to confirm what the leading economic indicators reveal.