Macro Journal

What is it?

How it works

  1. Read the news
  2. At the start of each week, compile your thoughts by answering 3 questions
  • Did Overall Economic Activity improve this week?
  • Did Prices improve this week?
  • Did Jobs improve this week?
  1. Log your thoughts using this form
  • Form opens Tuesdays at 9:05AM EST and closes the following Tuesday 9:00AM EST
  1. Repeat weekly

What it’s not

  • The MJ is not a trading strategy
  • The MJ doesn’t provide a granular view of activity; e.g. by sector or leading/lagging status

Who is this for?

  • Any students just beginning to watch the economy
  • Analysts (policy, business, markets) that need to form their own “big picture” perspective on the economy, but don’t need the nuance of a professional macroeconomist

Resources & Tips

Academic Article

Check out this article describing the pedagogical merits

Economic Calendars

  • Great resource for keeping up to date with macro activity. Several (free) versions are available. I enjoy the calendar from Trading Economics
  • Here is a quick tutorial on the anatomy of these calendars

How I track the data

Sitting down once a week and reading all of the macro-related news during the past 7 days is not feasible. Reading the news throughout the week is more feasible, but if you don’t have a record keeping system, your reactions to a news item aren’t captured. Every professional has their own organizational system. Let me describe how I track the macroeconomy on a weekly basis in the hopes that it sparks some ideas for how you set up your infrastructure.

  • Keep a macro notebook. I use MSFT OneNote. Macro Notebook -> Section by Date -> Pages by topic. This allows me to record any news item in no more than 3 steps (ala David Allen Getting Things Done).
  • For the macro journal I suggest topic pages for each question Output, Labor, Prices. You can extend to your purpose and passion. I also have Fed, Fiscal, Equities, Fixed Income, etc..
  • When you see an article throughout the week do one of the following
    • Read it, summarize it, and file it in the notebook
    • Screenshot/clip it and file in notebook
    • Mark the email/post, etc..as unread and redirect to your To Read pile
    • File the articles chronologically as you’ve read them. 1) the cadence of data is important for financial markets, 2) helps to trigger your memories.
  • Once a week
    1. Go through the econ calendar, evaluating each major data release
    2. Go through your To Read pile, summarizing and filing in your notebook
    3. Go to the overall economic activity page in your notebook. Skim through the article summaries and provide a rating. Provide a justification now. Don’t wait until later. We want to ensure the data is fresh in your mind. Repeat for Prices and Labor.