Trade Balance
The gap between what a country sells abroad and what it buys in -- a slower-moving, structural currency driver.
What it is
Trade balance is the difference between a country's exports and imports of goods over a period. A surplus (exports exceed imports) generally supports a currency over time -- foreign buyers need to acquire that currency to pay for the goods; a persistent deficit can weigh on it, since it implies the country is a structural net borrower from the rest of the world.
How to read it
Trade balance moves much more slowly than data like NFP or CPI, and a single month's release rarely moves markets much on its own -- it's better read as a multi-month trend than a single-print surprise. A sudden, sharp deterioration is more notable than the same-sized move in an already-established trend.
Worked example
If a country's trade deficit is expected to narrow slightly to -$60B and instead widens sharply to -$85B, driven by a jump in imports, that's a bigger and more currency-relevant surprise than the headline figure alone suggests -- especially if it breaks a trend of gradual improvement the market had been pricing in over the prior several months.
See Trade Balance live
Macrolens tracks this release and scores it into the composite -- free to start, no credit card required.