International Economic Indicators and Central Banks

Whether you re doing business overseas or seeking to diversify your portfolio through international investments, tracking global economic events as they occur is essential. One of the smartest ways to do this is by following the movement of international economic indicators and understanding how the decisions of foreign central banks can affect market behavior. Author Anne Dolganos Picker is an international economist who began monitoring global market conditions long before it became fashionable. She s familiar with the investment implications of international indicators and central banks, and now, with this book, she provides insightful analysis that will help you make more informed investment decisions as you venture into foreign markets. Divided into two comprehensive parts, International Economic Indicators and Central Banks offers detailed coverage of the primary indicators that major industrial countries from Canada, China, Japan, and Australia to Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom use to evaluate economic performance, and examines how their central banks create and carry out monetary policy. The European Monetary Union is also included in this discussion, since it is the umbrella organization for the three European countries covered here. International Economic Indicators and Central Banks opens with a brief description of the bond, stock, and foreign exchange markets since this is where investors respond to the news of central bank activities and the direction of economic indicators. Following this market introduction, Part I moves on to provide you with an eye opening overview of central bank functions, and then hones in on the individual central banks of the countries previously mentioned. Here, you ll discover how these central banks operate, and why they influence economies and your investments. Part II of the book deals with the nitty gritty of market moving international economic indicators from where to find them and what they mean to when they re released. With each chapter devoted to a different country, you ll become familiar with indicators that are reliable gauges of a country s economic growth and discover how similar indicators may differ across geographical borders. Some of the indicators addressed include the United Kingdom s Gross Domestic Product statistics, Canada s Labour Force Survey (LFS), and Japan s Tankan Survey. If you re not an economist, interpreting economic data and news can seem daunting. But with International Economic Indicators and Central Banks as your guide, you ll quickly learn how to do this and much more as you search for potentially profitable investment opportunities around the world.