FRED has added 324 quarterly aggregates of gross domestic product (GDP) from the Eurostat database. These data cover real and nominal GDP for the euro area, European Union, and European countries. Data for the euro area countries are presented with two versions of the euro currency series: One constructs the pre-1999 values using the irrevocably fixed exchange rate. The other (Euro/ECU series) uses the synthetic exchange rate of the European Currency Unit (ECU) to national currency to adjust for market exchange rate movements.

The FRED monthly database for macroeconomic research (FRED-MD) now includes the March 2016 vintage. This database, designed for the empirical analysis of “big data,” is described in detail in a St. Louis Fed working paper by Michael W. McCracken and Serena Ng.

FRED has added 24 daily aggregates of the repurchase agreements and reverse repurchase agreements from the New York Fed. The data are broken down by the type of securities (Treasury securities, federal agency securities, and mortgage-backed securities) and by the term of the agreement (overnight and term).

The New York Fed under the authorization and direction of the Federal Open Market Committee conducts temporary open market operations. These operations involve short-term repurchase and reverse repurchase agreements that are designed to temporarily add or drain reserves available to the banking system and influence day-to-day trading in the federal funds market. A repurchase agreement (known as repo or RP) is a transaction in which the New York Fed buys a security from an eligible counterparty under an agreement to resell that security in the future. A reverse repurchase agreement (known as reverse repo or RRP) is a transaction in which the New York Fed sells a security to an eligible counterparty with an agreement to repurchase that same security at a specified price at a specific time in the future.

FRED has just added 384 monthly series from the Texas Service Sector Outlook Survey (TSSOS) and the Texas Retail Outlook Survey (TROS) published by Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The TSSOS, similar to surveys produced by the New York and Philadelphia Federal Reserve Banks, looks at the outlook of the service sector in the state of Texas. The TROS takes a deeper look into the retail portion of the service sector. The headline series look at the respondents’ outlook on sales (TROS) and revenue (TSSOS).

FRED has added 9 series on overnight trading in the federal funds market from the New York Fed.

The effective federal funds rate (EFFR) is calculated as a volume-weighted median of overnight federal funds transactions of selected money market rates. EFFR is the rate associated with transactions at the 50th percentile of transaction volume. Transaction volume in the federal fund market and selected other percentiles are also available. Intraday highs and lows and the standard deviation series are provided as discontinued due to the changes to the calculation of the EFFR implemented at the beginning of March.