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Moving in your neighborhood

County-level net migration data

FRED has recently added county-level data on net migration based on the American Community Survey. This survey asks whether the respondent has lived elsewhere in the previous year, and the responses are then extrapolated to represent migration flows across the U.S. The map shows the last year for which these data are available. What’s interesting about this picture is that there is no clear pattern. One could have expected, say, a hollowing out of the Midwest in favor of the coasts, but this does not appear to be the case. More-detailed analysis would likely illuminate some deeper patterns, but it looks like migration is largely regional in nature: Moves between neighboring counties, for example, create this random-looking patchwork.

How this graph was created: The original post referenced an interactive map from our now discontinued GeoFRED site. The revised post provides a replacement map from FRED’s new mapping tool. To create FRED maps, go to the data series page in question and look for the green “VIEW MAP” button at the top right of the graph. See this post for instructions to edit a FRED map. Only series with a green map button can be mapped.

Suggested by Christian Zimmermann.

Christmas with FRED

Term deposits are deposits with specified maturity dates held by institutions eligible to receive interest on their balances at Federal Reserve Banks, but are separate and distinct from balances maintained in an institution’s master account at a Reserve Bank as well as from those maintained in an excess balance account. Term deposits are intended to facilitate the conduct of monetary policy by…

Ah, forget it!

Today, we aren’t really that interested in term deposits. We just wanted to draw a Christmas tree in a FRED graph.

How this graph was created: Search for this term deposits series and click “Add to Graph”; adjust the start date to May 2014; and under the “Edit Graph” menu, use the “Format” tab to change the line color and thickness. then, under the “Edit Graph” menu, go to the “Add Line” tab to the “Create user-defined line” option: Play with the coordinates (dates and y-axis values) to create the first line of the star. Continue to add user-defined lines as needed.

Suggested by Yvetta Fortova and Christian Zimmermann.

View on FRED, series used in this post: TERMT

Election surprises and exchange rates

Some election results are expected, and some come as a surprise. As people and markets adjust their expectations for the future with this new information, some financial variables may move around quite a bit.

The graph refers to two recent elections whose actual outcomes didn’t match forecasters’ expected outcomes: the British referendum vote on whether to stay in the European Union (a.k.a. Brexit) on June 23, 2016, and the recent U.S. presidential election on November 8, 2016. The red line shows the British pound per dollar exchange rate, and the blue line shows the Mexican peso per dollar exchange rate. Each series is centered on its respective election and indexed to 100 at the date of that election. (The interruptions in the lines show when markets were closed.)

In both cases, the value of the dollar relative to these currencies appreciated around 10% from the previous day’s value. This appreciation may reflect a negative (or less positive) revision to individuals’ expectations about the future of the British and Mexican economies based on the election outcomes.

How this graph was created: From the FRED homepage, search for and select the series “Mexico/U.S. Foreign Exchange Rate.” Then use the “Add Line” feature to search for and select “U.K./U.S. Foreign Exchange Rate” and add the series in dollars per British pound. To achieve a pounds-per-dollar series, under “Edit Line,” use the customize data section and type 100/a*100 in the formula box and click “Apply.” Finally. adjust the units of both series by selecting the “Index” option in the “Units” menu. Choose a custom date of 2016-06-23 for the pound and 2016-11-08 for the peso. Select the option to display integer periods instead of dates, and set the range to be -20 to 20 for all series.

Suggested by Max Dvorkin and Hannah Shell.

View on FRED, series used in this post: DEXMXUS, DEXUSUK


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