Catching economists off-guard: 2000 to 2004

To find out whether the dollar index futures contract performed differently when the current account number missed analyst expectations, we compared actual quarterly current account deficits to economists’ forecasts complied by Briefing.com over the past five years.

Of the 20 times the BEA released quarterly current account reports since March 15, 2000, the deficit was larger than expected 12 times and smaller than expected eight times. It shows the dollar welcomed smaller than expected deficits and rose in the first five days following them. In contrast, it declined 0.67 percent by the fifth day following larger-than-expected deficits.

Although the dollar fell over the next six weeks, its losses were milder after smaller-than-expected deficits. It slipped just 0.28 percent by the 40th day after smaller-than-expected deficits, but it dropped 1.19 percent further following surprisingly large ones.