You don’t need to manage millions or billions of dollars to use economic indicators to plan an investment strategy and build your portfolio. Furthermore, you don’t need a degree in economics or mathematics to interpret this information. Today, you can get much of the same information that Wall Street professionals use in their analyses from various online or print sources as well as numerous business programs.

Nobody understands this better than author Richard Yamarone, a Bloomberg Senior Economist with over twenty-five years of experience working on Wall Street. And now, in the Third Edition of The Trader’s Guide to Key Economic Indicators, he shares his extensive insights on this topic with you.

Filled with new examples and commentary on the recent financial crisis, this reliable guide focuses on a dozen essential economic indicators—and several others from the fixed income and commodity markets—that are among the most important of any analyst’s or economist’s tools. Each chapter corresponds to an indicator, beginning with the most comprehensive—GDP and indices of leading, lagging, and coincident indicators—and continuing with those tied to particular aspects or segments of the overall economy, such as consumer prices, manufacturing, housing, and retail sales.

To help you gain a firm understanding of the indicators addressed, every chapter follows the same basic setup: an introduction sketching out the major attributes of the indicator and its effect on the markets; a discussion of its origins and development; a description of how the relevant data are obtained, analyzed, and presented; and an explanation of how to incorporate these data into your investment endeavors. The last section of every chapter also contains at least one “Trick from the Trenches” that will allow you to develop a clearer picture of business activity.

Engaging and informative, the Third Edition of The Trader’s Guide to Key Economic Indicators will help you gain a practical command of economic indicators and their meaning for investment. Written for both professional and individual investors, it will put you in a better position to form your own opinions about the possible direction of the economy and markets as well as how to make the most informed investment decisions based on those opinions.