Finance Resource Guide: Data

The Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED II) is a database of over 2,900 U.S. economic time series. A small sample of time series data includes Treasury maturity rates, deposits, consumer credit, government securities, trade data, and bank prime loan rate. Data can be downloaded in Excel and text formats and can be viewed in charts.

"A quarterly publication that provides detailed aggregate financial information as well as key structural data for all FDIC-insured institutions." The user can customize reports using five categories- Industry (commercial or savings), Geography (state or national) By (asset, foreign office, insurance fund, or time series), Date (starting in 1992), and Report (assets and liabilities, income and expense, structure tables, or publication).

Valuable site for current daily and historical data on foreign exchange rates, interest rates (including those for government investments like T Bills), consumer credit, banks and finance companies, and a variety of other monetary measures.

The data covers portions of the Bank Group’s investments, assets it manages on behalf of global funds, and the Bank Group’s own financial statements. Includes country summaries. Raw data sets may be downloaded and embedded.

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) maintains an extensive data set that covers pre-WWI and interwar economies, including production, employment, money, prices, asset market transactions, foreign trade, and government activity. The data set has some coverage of the United Kingdom, France and Germany, although it predominantly covers the United States.

The OECD offers data based on key indicators in member countries. Data is both historic and current.

The U.N. Statistics Division's site offers data within broad categories, including national accounts, trade, environment, energy, industrial, and social. Not all of the statistics are available for free.

The BIS "is an international organization which fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a bank for central banks." The International Financial Statistics site provides banking statistics, securities statistics, derivative statistics, and the joint BIS-OECD-World Bank statistics on external debt.

The Viewer allows access to current and historic data via charts and graphs. The user may search using keyword or choose a chapter. Chapters cover topics, such as bonds, futures, international data, stock price trends, historical data, and much more.

Provides over 100,000 economic time series, for which data and charts can be retrieved. Data can be charted with comparisons, and Excel files are also available. Majority of data sets involve U.S. macroeconomic data from the Federal Reserve, Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Department of Commerce. Includes stock price indexes and information from foreign banks, such as the Bank of Japan and the Central Bank of Europe.