There’s an old saying: “The stock market has predicted nine of the last five recessions.” When the Trader Team told this joke to our developers they received furrowed brows. A few weeks later, those same developers came back and handed over approximately 400,000 data points!
Those 400,000 data points are now incorporated into a new world of economic data for our thinkorswim® users. “World” is quite literal in this case, as the data spans six continents. Whether you want to keep a pulse on change in U.S. GDP or analyze corporate profits compared to the 10 year/two year bonds spread, you now have the data you need, and an easy to use, customizable platform to chart it.
Getting Started:
You can find this new feature by selecting the Economic Data subtab under the Analyze tab on thinkorswim.
Because this is such a massive set of data, we provide a landing page to help you navigate (Figure 1).
All of the data are grouped into eight different categories, which come from our source, FRED® (disclaimer: this product uses the FRED® API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis)
Categories:
FIGURE 1: NAVIGATE THIS.
Economic data from FRED® is grouped into eight different categories to help you navigate all of what is available to you. Chart source: thinkorswim by TD Ameritrade. For illustrative purposes only.
Each category has specific subcategories to guide you down the respective rabbit holes (Figure 2). Once you click on a subcategory you’ll find that the navigation is pretty straightforward, and you’ll be able to easily search data by keyword or series symbol. All results are sorted by popularity as defined by our source, FRED.
FIGURE 2: DIG IN TO THE DETAILS.
Click on subcategories to navigate through various topics and search by keywords or series symbols. Source: thinkorswim by TD Ameritrade. For illustrative purposes only.
Given the cornucopia of data we are unleashing here, we created this short video to help you get a quick understanding of the new Economic Data tab:
Curious how to put these 400,000 data points into action? Read all about how to chart in the new function. And, read the Release Notes on the thinkorswim Learning Center for full details on thinkorswim version 1888.
We hope you find this new feature helpful. Be sure to let us know what you think. Reach out on Twitter or drop a line to support@thinkorswim.com.