Federal Reserve Economic Data

Let’s look at real gross domestic product for the United States. To help us, we’ll also use a new feature of FRED graphs: custom lines. This feature can be useful to highlight a new trend that emerges as additional data points are added. The graph shows that the U.S. economy seems to be on a new trend, with a similar growth trend as before but a notch lower. It looks as if the economy lost a few years of growth during the previous recession and is now back on track. It this the whole story? Of course not. There’s much more to measuring the health of the economy than just GDP. But this particular development is quite startling.

How this graph was created: Start with a graph of quarterly real GDP. Select the starting date of 1994-10-01, either by typing that date in the box above the graph or by moving the ruler below the graph. For the first trend line, use the “Add a Series” feature and select “Trend Line” from the pull-down menu. By default, it creates a line from the first to the last data point in the visible range. Change the end date of that line to 2007-10-01 and associate with it the value of GDP at that date. (To do so, hover over the graph to find the value for that date and then add that end value to the trend line.) Add the second trend line in a similar way, but start at 2009-10-01. Finally, change the color of the second trend line to burgundy to match the first.

Suggested by Christian Zimmermann