Understanding Forecast Data.

USBR forecasts data based on various microeconomic and macroeconomics principles. In particular, employment levels, inventory, consumer spending, business loans, Gross Domestic Product, export and import activity, and various other economic measures. In addition, USBR looks at lagging and leading indicators to gauge the status of industry activity and its effect on the economy.

In many tables on the U.S. Business Reporter web site you will see some financial information marked as "E" following the data numbers. The " E " indicates this information is an estimate. Some data will be marked as "F" indicating the data is a forecast of industry or economic activity. As an example, see the table below: