FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data)
The St. Louis Fed's free database of US and international economic and market time series, with charting, downloads, an Excel add-in and an API. The fastest way to pull rates, spreads, inflation, employment or credit data.
Free to read
FRED gathers time series from the Fed, the BLS, the BEA, the Treasury, private index providers and many international agencies into one searchable site. Every series has a page with a chart you can adjust, transformations such as percent change or log, the source and release notes, and download links. You can overlay series, build dashboards, embed charts, or pull data straight into Excel or code through the add-in and the API. Its sister site ALFRED keeps past vintages, so you can see what a figure looked like before it was revised.
For markets people, FRED is where you check the Treasury curve, credit spreads, the money supply, bank lending, housing and labor data without a terminal. The FRED Blog adds short posts that show how to read particular series.
Learn the series IDs for the data you use most, and always check the units and seasonal adjustment before you compare two lines on one chart.
Start with
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1
10-Year Treasury Constant Maturity Minus 2-Year (T10Y2Y)
The yield curve slope, the single most watched recession signal.
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2
Market Yield on U.S. Treasury Securities at 10-Year Constant Maturity (DGS10)
The benchmark rate behind almost every discount rate.
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3
FRED Blog
Short posts that teach you how to use and read the data.