Economy.

The total spending on goods and services in an economy at a given price level, from households, businesses, government, and foreign buyers.

The total goods and services producers in an economy are willing to make and sell at a given overall price level.

The complete record of every economic transaction between a country's residents and the rest of the world in a period.

A country's exports of goods and services minus its imports, showing whether it sells more to the world than it buys.

When many depositors pull their money out at once because they fear the bank will fail, which can cause the failure they feared.

A regulator's exercise that runs a bank's balance sheet through a severe hypothetical downturn to see if its capital would hold up.

An international set of bank capital and liquidity standards written after the 2008 crisis and adopted by national regulators.

A basis point is one one-hundredth of a percent (0.01%), the unit used to describe small changes in interest rates and yields.

The Fed's report of anecdotes from businesses in each Federal Reserve district, gathered and published before rate meetings.

The gap in a single year when the government spends more than it collects in taxes; the opposite is a surplus.

The deficit is how much more the government spends than it collects in one year, the debt is every past deficit added up and still owed.

The economy's repeating pattern of expansion and contraction, with recessions dated in the U.S. by the NBER.

Capital expenditure, or capex, is money a company spends on long-lived assets like factories, equipment, and technology to grow or maintain its business.

Borrowing in a low-interest currency to invest in a higher-interest one, collecting the gap and betting the exchange rate does not erase it.

A repeat-sales index that tracks changes in U.S. home prices by comparing what the same houses sold for over time.

The principle that a central bank sets interest rates without direct political control, so policy is not tuned to the election calendar.

The highest quality bank capital, mostly common stock and retained earnings, measured against risk-weighted assets as a safety cushion.

The idea that a country gains by producing what it gives up least to make, then trading, even if a partner is better at everything.

A survey-based gauge of how optimistic households feel about the economy and their finances, watched because mood can shape spending.

The government's main measure of inflation: how much a typical basket of consumer goods and services changes in price over time.

The Consumer Price Index with food and energy prices removed, used to see the underlying inflation trend without the volatile swings.

The Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge: personal consumption expenditure prices with food and energy excluded.

The chance that conditions in a country, such as politics, currency, or capital rules, hurt an investment there regardless of how the business performs.

The crack spread is the profit margin refineries earn from turning a barrel of crude oil into refined products like gasoline and diesel.

When government borrowing pushes interest rates up and private borrowers spend or invest less as a result.

Crude oil is unrefined petroleum pumped from the ground, the raw input that refineries turn into gasoline, diesel, and other fuels.

Appreciation means a currency buys more foreign money than before. Depreciation means it buys less. Both are market moves, not policy resets.

A deliberate government move to reset a fixed exchange rate lower, making exports cheaper abroad and imports more expensive at home.

Using forwards, futures, or options to remove the effect of exchange rate moves on a foreign investment or a foreign-currency bill.

A government commitment to hold its currency at a set rate against another, defended by buying and selling foreign exchange reserves.

The broadest running tally of a country's trade in goods and services plus income and transfers flowing in and out.

A customs declaration is the form sent with an international package that tells customs what is inside, what it is worth, and who is sending it.

A customs duty is a tax a country charges on goods as they cross its border, with a rate that depends on what the goods are and where they come from.

Job losses caused by a downturn in the economy, when weak demand means employers need fewer workers than they did.

A legal cap Congress sets on how much the Treasury can borrow to pay bills the government has already committed to.

A general fall in prices across the economy. The opposite of inflation, and historically rarer.

The discount rate is the interest rate the Federal Reserve charges banks to borrow money directly from it, one of its tools for influencing credit.

The Federal Reserve's standing facility that lends cash to banks against collateral when they need short-term funding.

People who want a job but have stopped looking because they believe none is available, so they fall outside the official unemployment rate.

A slowdown in the rate of inflation, where prices are still rising but more slowly. Not the same as deflation, where prices fall.

The 2010 U.S. law that rewrote financial regulation after the crisis, adding capital rules, derivatives oversight, and the CFPB.

The dollar index measures the value of the US dollar against a basket of other major currencies, showing whether the dollar is broadly rising or falling.

When a country uses another country's currency, usually the US dollar, in place of or alongside its own money.

The dot plot is a chart the Federal Reserve publishes showing where each official expects interest rates to be in the coming years, one dot per person.

Dovish means leaning toward lower rates to support jobs, hawkish means leaning toward higher rates to hold down inflation.

The dual mandate is the Federal Reserve's two legal goals: keeping prices stable and employment as high as the economy can sustain.

A monthly report on new orders for long-lasting manufactured items, watched as an early signal of business investment plans.

A downturn far deeper and longer than a normal recession, with output falling sharply and unemployment staying high for years.

The two phases of the business cycle: expansion is a stretch of growing output and hiring, contraction is a broad decline across the economy.

How much the quantity people buy changes when the price changes, measured as percentage change in quantity over percentage change in price.

Bonds issued by governments and companies in developing economies, paying higher yields as compensation for credit, currency, and political risk.

A classification index providers apply to national markets, based on income, market size, liquidity, and investor access rules.

A bond issued outside the home jurisdiction of the currency it is written in, such as a dollar bond sold in London by a foreign borrower.

A US dollar deposit held at a bank outside the United States, sitting outside US banking rules while still being a claim on dollars.

The price of one currency in terms of another, which sets how far your money goes abroad and shapes the cost of imports and exports.

The rulebook a country uses to set its currency's value against other currencies, running from a free float to a hard peg.

The overnight rate banks charge each other to lend reserves. The Fed's main lever on the economy.

The committee inside the Federal Reserve that sets the federal funds rate, the decision that ripples out to your savings, card, and mortgage rates.

The central bank of the United States, sets the policy interest rate that ripples through the economy.

How much total economic output changes for each dollar of government spending or tax change, once the money gets re-spent through the economy.

How the government uses taxing and spending to steer the economy, the counterpart to the Fed's monetary policy of interest rates.

Government spending increases or tax cuts meant to raise demand and lift a weak economy, usually financed by borrowing.

Fixed investment is spending by businesses and households on long-lasting assets like buildings, equipment, and homes, a key driver of economic growth.

A floating rate is set by the market and moves daily. A fixed rate is held at a chosen level by the central bank using reserves.

Cross-border investment that buys lasting control or influence in a business abroad, such as building a plant or taking a large ownership stake.

Foreign currency and gold a central bank holds to defend its exchange rate, pay for imports, and cover foreign debt in a crisis.

An agreed price to exchange currencies on a future date, locked in today so neither side is exposed to the rate moving in between.

Forward guidance is the Federal Reserve telling markets what it expects to do with interest rates in the future, to shape expectations before it acts.

The banking system in which banks hold only a fraction of deposits as reserves and lend out the rest.

The short-term joblessness that happens while people move between jobs, search for a better fit, or first enter the workforce.

The point where everyone who wants a job at prevailing wages can find one, allowing for normal turnover rather than meaning zero unemployment.

GDP (gross domestic product) is the total dollar value of all the goods and services a country produces in a set period, usually a year or a quarter.

A geopolitical risk premium is the extra price built into assets like oil or gold when wars, tensions, or political shocks threaten supply or stability.

A single number from 0 to 1 measuring how unequally income is spread across a population, where 0 is perfectly equal.

The Depression-era law that split commercial banking from investment banking, largely repealed in 1999.

The value of everything produced by a country's residents and companies, wherever in the world that production happens.

A monthly count of new residential construction projects that broke ground, watched as an early signal for the wider economy.

Inflation so rapid that money loses value by the week, prices get reset constantly, and people rush to spend cash before it buys less.

Import fees are charges for clearing a shipment through customs, set by whoever handles it, and they can apply even when no duty or tax is owed.

Import prices track what the US pays for goods bought from abroad, an early signal of inflation pressure feeding into the wider economy.

Inflation expectations are how much inflation consumers, businesses, and investors think there will be in the future, which can influence actual inflation.

The rate the Federal Reserve pays banks on the money they keep on deposit at the Fed, a main tool for steering short-term rates.

The price of borrowing or lending money, expressed as a yearly percentage.

An organization of member countries that lends to governments facing balance of payments crises and monitors the health of the world economy.

A monthly survey of factory purchasing managers, where a reading above 50 means manufacturing is expanding and below 50 means it is shrinking.

The weekly count of people filing for unemployment benefits, a timely read on layoffs that markets watch closely.

A monthly Labor Department report on job openings, hires, quits, and layoffs, giving a fuller picture of labor market churn.

The labor force participation rate is the share of working-age people who are either employed or actively looking for work.

Data series that tend to turn before the wider economy does, used to get an early read on where growth is heading.

The central bank's role of lending to solvent banks during a panic so a funding squeeze does not turn into a collapse.

The expense a bank books to cover loans it expects to go bad, set aside before any specific borrower actually stops paying.

The share of each additional dollar of income that a household spends rather than saves, usually written as a decimal between 0 and 1.

Median earnings are the midpoint of what workers earn: half make more, half make less, a truer picture of typical pay than the average.

Median income is the middle household's income, mean income is the average, which a few very high earners can pull far above the middle.

Monetary policy is how a central bank, the Federal Reserve in the US, steers the economy by adjusting interest rates and the supply of money.

Monetary policy is the central bank moving interest rates and money supply, fiscal policy is Congress moving taxes and government spending.

How new money enters the economy, mostly when banks make loans and credit the borrower's account with a new deposit.

The money supply is the total amount of cash and easily spendable money circulating in an economy at a given time.

The unemployment rate low enough to keep inflation steady, below which economists expect wage and price pressure to build.

The total the federal government owes from years of borrowing to cover deficits, tracked in real time by the U.S. Treasury.

The theoretical interest rate that neither speeds up nor slows the economy, used as a benchmark for whether policy is tight or loose.

A loan where the borrower has stopped paying, typically past due 90 days or more, so the bank no longer counts it as earning interest.

Nonfarm payrolls are the monthly count of US jobs added or lost outside farming, the headline number in the government's jobs report.

The federal agency that charters, regulates, and supervises national banks and federal savings associations.

The Federal Reserve buying or selling Treasury securities in the open market to steer short-term interest rates.

The difference between what an economy actually produces and what it could produce at full capacity, stated as a percentage.

PCE inflation measures how fast prices rise across the goods and services people actually buy. It is the inflation gauge the Federal Reserve watches most.

The observed trade-off where lower unemployment tends to come with higher inflation, and higher unemployment with lower inflation.

A power purchase agreement is a long-term contract to buy the electricity a specific generator produces, at a price set for a fixed number of years.

A BLS measure of the prices producers receive for their goods and services, watched as an early signal of where consumer inflation may head.

Quantitative easing is when a central bank buys large amounts of bonds to push interest rates down and pump money into the economy.

The Federal Reserve shrinking its balance sheet by letting bonds it holds roll off, the reverse of quantitative easing.

The idea that money supply times how fast money circulates equals the price level times real output, linking money growth to inflation.

A meaningful decline in economic activity that lasts more than a few months.

Refinery utilization is the share of a refinery's total capacity that is actually being used to process crude, a gauge of how hard refineries are running.

The refining margin is the profit a refinery makes per barrel after covering the cost of crude and the cost of processing it into fuels.

A currency that central banks hold in their reserves and that the world uses to price trade, borrow, and settle cross-border payments.

The share of certain deposits a bank must hold as reserves rather than lend out, set by the Federal Reserve.

What you actually pay per gallon at the pump, built up from crude oil, refining, distribution, taxes, and the station's margin.

A monthly Census Bureau count of what consumers spent at stores, restaurants, and online, a direct read on household demand.

Pooling many loans and selling shares of the cash they produce as bonds, which moves the loans off the lender's balance sheet.

Credit provided outside the regulated banking system by funds, finance companies, and other non-banks that do not take insured deposits.

A soft landing is when a central bank slows inflation by raising interest rates without tipping the economy into a recession.

Money a national government borrows by issuing bonds, repaid from taxes and new borrowing rather than from assets a lender could seize.

When a national government fails to pay its debt on the original terms, through a missed payment or a restructuring that cuts what creditors get.

The market price to swap one currency for another right now, with the trade normally settling within about two business days.

Stagflation is when an economy has high inflation and weak growth with high unemployment at the same time, an unusually painful combination.

The tendency for prices and wages to adjust slowly, so demand shocks hit output and employment before they show up in price tags.

A strong dollar buys more foreign currency than before, a weak dollar buys less, and that changes import prices and export sales.

Joblessness that comes from a mismatch between the skills or locations workers have and the jobs employers are actually offering.

The model that explains prices: buyers want more at low prices, sellers offer more at high prices, and price settles where the two meet.

A firm judged large or connected enough that its failure could damage the whole financial system, so it faces tougher supervision.

Slowing the pace of a central bank's asset purchases, so it is still buying bonds but buying less each month.

A tariff is a tax a government puts on imported goods, which usually raises the price consumers pay for those goods.

The idea that some firms are so central to the financial system that governments will rescue them rather than let them collapse.

A trade deficit is when a country imports more goods and services than it exports, so it buys more from the world than it sells.

An escalating exchange of tariffs and trade restrictions between countries, where each round of retaliation raises costs on both sides.

The return an investor earns for lending to the U.S. government by buying a Treasury. It sets the floor for most other interest rates.

A broader unemployment rate that adds discouraged workers and involuntary part-timers to the official count, so it runs higher than the headline rate.

The unemployment rate is the share of people who want a job and are actively looking but do not have one, as a percentage of the labor force.

How many times a dollar changes hands in an economy over a year, calculated as total output divided by the money supply.

A Dodd-Frank restriction that bars banks with insured deposits from trading for their own profit and limits their hedge fund stakes.

An international institution owned by member governments that lends and grants money to developing countries for long-term development projects.

WTI, or West Texas Intermediate, is the main US benchmark grade of crude oil whose price is widely quoted as the reference for American oil.

A chart of Treasury yields from short maturities to long. The shape signals what the market expects about rates and growth.