Macro & Fiscal Trackers

GDP, retail sales, money supply, the Fed's balance sheet, and the U.S. national debt — the big-picture economic indicators that frame every other tracker on this site.

If individual rates and prices are the trees, the Macro & Fiscal group is the forest. These trackers measure the size and shape of the U.S. economy as a whole — how fast it's growing, how much money is in the system, how much debt the federal government carries, and how aggressively the central bank is intervening. Most of these series update quarterly or monthly, which makes them slow signals — but they're the signals that frame everything else.

Our Macro & Fiscal trackers cover GDP (the size of the economy), retail sales (consumer spending — about 70% of GDP), the M2 money supply (how much liquid money is in the system), the Federal Reserve's balance sheet (QE and QT in real time), and the U.S. national debt. Each pulls from FRED on its native cadence and shows the year-over-year change against multi-year history.

These are the trackers analysts cite to argue about whether the economy is "fine" or "in trouble." They're the numbers Fed Chair press conferences reference. And they're the ones politicians most love to misuse, because the cycles are so slow you can cherry-pick a starting date and tell almost any story. Long history charts make those manipulations visible — and shame-free to ignore.

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Macro & Fiscal 13

GDP, retail sales, Fed balance sheet, money supply, and the federal debt picture.

GDP Growth Rate (real, QoQ) Real Gross Domestic Product — the broadest measure of U.S. economic output. LIVE 2.10% -0.50 Atlanta Fed GDPNow Real-time GDP nowcast — updated as new monthly data lands. LIVE 2.30% +0.30 Industrial Production Output of factories, mines, and utilities — a key real-economy gauge. LIVE 103.50 +0 Retail Sales Monthly retail and food-services receipts — the consumer-spending headline. LIVE $725.0B +5 Personal Income Total income received by U.S. residents from all sources. LIVE $24.80T +0 Personal Consumption PCE — household spending, the largest component of U.S. GDP. LIVE $19.50T +0 Trade Balance U.S. exports minus imports — negative numbers mean a trade deficit. LIVE -$-72.5B -4 Money Supply (M2) Currency + checking + savings + retail money funds. The broad money aggregate. LIVE $21.85T +0 Fed Balance Sheet Total Federal Reserve assets — the QE / QT scoreboard. LIVE $7.00T 0 Reverse Repo Outstanding The Fed's overnight reverse repo facility — where idle bank cash parks. LIVE $0.350T 0 Treasury General Account Treasury's checking account at the Fed — the cash the Treasury actually has on hand. LIVE $0.620T 0 Federal Debt Outstanding Total U.S. federal debt held by the public + intra-government holdings. LIVE $36.85T +0 Michigan Consumer Sentiment The University of Michigan's monthly consumer-mood survey — a leading indicator. LIVE 72.5 +1

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Who Watches These Trackers?

Economy Watchers

Track GDP, retail sales, and the Fed balance sheet to understand where the U.S. economy is in the cycle.

News Readers

See whether the "recession warning" or "boom market" headline matches the actual macro data.

Policy Followers

Watch money supply and the federal debt to understand the long-run fiscal and monetary backdrop.

Frequently Asked Questions

M2 is the broadest commonly-cited measure of money in the U.S. economy — cash, checking accounts, savings accounts, money market funds, and small time deposits. When M2 grows fast, there's more money chasing the same goods (inflationary). When M2 contracts (rare), there's less liquidity in the system (deflationary). M2 grew ~40% from 2020 to 2022, which many economists tie to the 2022 inflation spike.

GDP is the total value of everything the U.S. economy produces — consumer spending, business investment, government spending, and net exports — published quarterly. Retail sales is one slice (consumer spending on goods) published monthly. Retail sales is higher frequency and is the best early read on the consumer-spending component of GDP, which itself is ~70% of GDP. Watch retail monthly; let GDP confirm quarterly.

The Fed's balance sheet measures how many assets (mostly Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities) the Fed has bought to inject liquidity into the system. Quantitative easing (QE) shrinks the asset count of private holders and grows the Fed's balance — looser policy. Quantitative tightening (QT) is the reverse. The balance sheet grew from ~$4T to ~$9T from 2020 to 2022 (massive QE), and has been slowly shrinking through QT since 2022.

The national debt is at historic highs as a share of GDP, but the U.S. has a unique advantage: the dollar is the world's reserve currency, so demand for U.S. Treasuries is structurally strong. The bigger concern most economists flag is the interest-cost trajectory — as old low-rate debt rolls into the higher-rate environment of 2024+, interest costs become a bigger share of the federal budget every year. That's a slow squeeze, not a sudden crisis.

Because they're estimates. GDP gets three estimates — advance, second, and third — over six weeks as more underlying data comes in. Monthly nonfarm payrolls get revised twice. Annual revisions sometimes restate years of data. The initial release is a best guess. The third release or the annual revision is closer to truth. Always check whether the number you're citing is the latest version.