CPI, Jobs & the Calendar That Moves Markets
A handful of scheduled data releases deliver an outsized chunk of the year's market moves. Here's what CPI, the jobs report, and the calendar actually measure — and why surprises matter more than levels.
The economic calendar is the single most event-traded surface in markets. A small set of scheduled releases — inflation, the monthly jobs report, weekly unemployment claims, business surveys — between them set the consensus view of where the economy is, and that consensus is what stock multiples, bond yields, the dollar, and commodities are all priced against. Research on scheduled announcements finds that a minority of trading days — the days these numbers land — deliver a disproportionate share of the entire year's market return. If you trade through these windows blind, you are taking the risk without knowing it is there.
The releases that actually move things
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