economic indicators

Key statistics that indicate the direction of an economy. They are of three main types: (1) Leading indicators (such as new orders for consumer durables, net business formation, and share prices) that attempt to predict the economy's direction, (2) Coincident indicators (such as gross domestic product, employment levels, retail sales) that show up together with the occurrence of associated economic activity, and (3) Lagging indicators (such as gross national product, consumer price index, interest rates) that become apparent only after the occurrence of associated economic activity.