Section

Learn

How to read each chart on this site, and plain definitions of the terms it uses. The explanations describe what a figure measures; they do not say what anyone should do with it.

How to read the charts

Seven drawings, one idea each

Market clock

The dial is one day in UTC, with midnight at the top and noon at the bottom. Each ring is one exchange; its arcs are the hours of continuous trading. Arcs that are glowing gold are open now, blue arcs are the day's other sessions, and dashed arcs are regular hours on a day the exchange is closed. The gold hand is the current time.

Yield curve

Each column is one maturity, from one month on the left to thirty years on the right. The bright dot at the top of a column is the latest yield; the column of small dots below it only gives it height. The dashed rose line is the same curve a year earlier. The 10-year maturity is marked in gold.

Central bank rings

The ring runs from a bank's previous scheduled decision to its next one. It fills as the next decision approaches, and the number in the middle is the days left. A full ring means the decision is due today. The ring says nothing about what will be decided.

Market map

Each tile is a stock market index, grouped by region. When the data gives the combined market value of every index's companies, a tile's area follows its square root, with a minimum size so that small markets stay readable; otherwise every tile is the same size. The note under the map says which applies. Green tiles rose on the day and red tiles fell; stronger colour means a larger move. Tiles are not sorted by performance.

Release timeline

Official releases run from top to bottom in time order, in UTC. Filled blue points have been released and show the headline figure as published when the data includes it; the gold point is now; open points are still to come, with the time left. Only official statistical agencies and central banks appear.

Consumer price dots

Each row is one economy and each dot one month, oldest on the left. A larger, rosier dot means higher inflation that month; a smaller, bluer dot means lower. The number at the end of the row is the latest reading. The scale is shared by every row, so rows can be compared.

Reference rate lines

Euro reference rates are the units of each currency that one euro was worth at the ECB's daily fixing. The thin line shows the last 30 published rates, oldest on the left. A rising line means the euro bought more of that currency.

Glossary

Alphabetical

Basis point (bp): One hundredth of a percentage point. A yield that moves from 4.04% to 4.01% has fallen by 3 basis points.
Central bank: The public institution that issues a currency and sets its key interest rate, such as the Federal Reserve for the U.S. dollar or the European Central Bank for the euro.
Consumer price index (CPI): A measure of the prices households pay for a fixed basket of goods and services. Inflation is usually quoted as the change in the index over twelve months.
Debt to equity: A company's borrowings divided by the value of its shareholders' equity on the balance sheet.
Delayed data: Prices shown some time after they were set, usually at least 15 minutes, or at the end of the trading day. Nothing on this site is real time.
EDGAR: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's public database of company filings.
Filing: A document a company submits to a securities authority, such as a quarterly report. The Filings page lists new filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Free cash flow: Cash left after running and investing in the business.
Gross domestic product (GDP): The value of everything an economy produces. U.S. quarterly growth is quoted at an annualised rate: the change on the previous quarter, scaled up to a full year.
Gross margin: Revenue minus the direct cost of what was sold, as a share of revenue.
Harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP): The consumer price index that every European Union country compiles in the same way, which makes countries comparable. Eurostat publishes it for the euro area.
Index: A single number that follows the combined share prices of a defined group of companies, such as the 500 large U.S. companies in the S&P 500.
LTM: Last twelve months: the four most recent quarters added together.
Market value: A company's share price multiplied by its number of shares: what all its shares are worth together. Also called market capitalisation.
Maturity: The time until a bond is repaid, such as three months or ten years. Also called the tenor.
Net margin: Profit after all costs and taxes, as a share of revenue.
Nonfarm payrolls: The monthly change in the number of paid jobs in the United States outside farming, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' survey of employers.
PCE price index: The Bureau of Economic Analysis' measure of prices for goods and services bought by and for U.S. households.
Policy rate: The interest rate through which a central bank steers short-term rates in its currency. It is changed at scheduled decisions and occasionally between them.
Price / earnings: A company's market value divided by its yearly profit: how many dollars the market puts on each dollar of profit. Price / free cash flow does the same with free cash flow.
Reference rate: The European Central Bank's daily exchange rate of a currency against the euro, set around 14:10 CET and published around 16:00 CET for information.
Return on capital: Operating profit after tax divided by the capital a business uses: its equity and borrowings.
Sample data: Invented values used to show how the site looks before its data service publishes real figures. Every chart drawn from sample data carries a "Sample data" badge.
Session: The hours during which an exchange runs continuous trading. Some exchanges, such as Tokyo and Hong Kong, pause for lunch between two sessions.
Spread: The difference between two yields, usually given in basis points, such as the 10-year yield minus the 2-year yield.
Stock-based pay: The part of employees' pay that a company gives in its own shares, shown as a share of revenue.
Target range: The Federal Reserve sets its policy rate as a range, 0.25 percentage points wide, rather than as a single figure.
Unemployment rate: The share of people in the labour force who have no job and are looking for one.
Year on year: The change compared with the same month or quarter a year earlier.
Yield: The yearly interest rate implied by a bond's price and its payments, in percent. When a bond's price rises, its yield falls.
Yield curve: The yields of one borrower's bonds across maturities, from the shortest to the longest. The Rates page shows the U.S. Treasury's curve.