Resources for Financial Market Data

Resources for Financial Market Data

Resources for Financial Market Data

Updated December 30, 2024

Congressional Research Service

https://crsreports.congress.gov

R47379

Congressional Research Service

SUMMARY

Resources for Financial Market Data

The U.S. financial system contains large and active markets for stocks, bonds, and commodities, as well as digital assets (e.g., cryptocurrencies) and other financial instruments. This report describes authoritative, open-access sources for current and historical information about major financial markets in the United States. These sources include commercial businesses, industry groups, and government agencies.

This report also provides links to federal financial regulatory agencies data, selected glossaries with background information about financial markets, and related CRS products.

For information on nonfinancial economic indicators, see CRS Report R43295, Resources for Key Economic Indicators, by Ben Leubsdorf and Jennifer Teefy.

R47379

December 30, 2024

Ben Leubsdorf Senior Research Librarian

Resources for Financial Market Data

Congressional Research Service

Contents

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Selected Data Resources.................................................................................................................. 1

Stocks and Investment Funds .................................................................................................... 1

Selected Stock Indexes ....................................................................................................... 2 Individual Companies and Funds ........................................................................................ 3

Interest Rates and Debt Securities ............................................................................................. 4

General Data Sources .......................................................................................................... 4

Mortgages and Consumer Loans ........................................................................................ 5 U.S. Treasury Securities ...................................................................................................... 5

Municipal Bonds ................................................................................................................. 6

Money Market ..................................................................................................................... 6

Monetary Policy .................................................................................................................. 6

Commodity Prices ..................................................................................................................... 7

General Data Sources .......................................................................................................... 7

Agricultural ......................................................................................................................... 7

Energy ................................................................................................................................. 7 Metals and Minerals ............................................................................................................ 8

Foreign Exchange Rates ............................................................................................................ 8

Digital Assets ............................................................................................................................ 9

Cryptocurrencies ................................................................................................................. 9 Non-Fungible Tokens .......................................................................................................... 9

Financial Market Condition Metrics ......................................................................................... 9

Regulatory Agency Data ............................................................................................................... 10

Commodity Futures Trading Commission ............................................................................... 11

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau .................................................................................... 11

Farm Credit Administration ..................................................................................................... 11

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation .................................................................................... 11

Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council ................................................................ 11

Federal Housing Finance Agency ........................................................................................... 12 Federal Reserve ....................................................................................................................... 12

Financial Stability Oversight Council ..................................................................................... 12 National Credit Union Administration .................................................................................... 12 Office of the Comptroller of the Currency .............................................................................. 12

Office of Financial Research ................................................................................................... 13

Securities and Exchange Commission .................................................................................... 13

Glossaries of Financial Terms ....................................................................................................... 13 Related CRS Resources ................................................................................................................. 13

Introduction to Financial Services ........................................................................................... 13

Assets, Markets, and Regulation ............................................................................................. 14 Digital Assets and Fintech ....................................................................................................... 15

Contacts

Author Information ........................................................................................................................ 15

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Introduction

The U.S. financial system contains large and active markets for stocks, bonds, and commodities, as well as other financial instruments. Because of the economic significance of developments in financial markets for businesses and consumers, considerable efforts are made to generate information tracking these developments. Commercial businesses, industry groups, and government agencies publish information tracking key activities such as asset pricing and trading volumes. Businesses, investors, regulators, lawmakers, and the news media closely monitor this information for various purposes, including to gauge the effects of developments in financial markets on the broader economy.

This report describes a selection of authoritative, open-access sources for current and historical data about major financial markets in the United States—information about equities, fixed- income securities, commodity futures, foreign-currency exchange rates, digital assets such as cryptocurrencies, and overall market functioning and conditions. It provides links to data from federal financial regulatory agencies, such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This report also links to selected glossaries with background information about financial markets and CRS products on related topics.

Not all financial market data are publicly available. For example, financial-services firms whose businesses rely on responding quickly to market developments typically pay for access to aggregated, real-time market data from vendors, such as Bloomberg LP, FactSet Research Systems Inc., and S&P Global Inc. These private data providers are outside the scope of this report.

For information on nonfinancial economic indicators, see CRS Report R43295, Resources for Key Economic Indicators, by Ben Leubsdorf and Jennifer Teefy.

Selected Data Resources

This section describes sources of information about five broad asset classes—stocks and investment funds, interest rates and debt securities, commodities, foreign exchange, and digital assets—and indicators that track financial conditions more broadly.

Stocks and Investment Funds

Stocks or equities are individual shares “that represent part ownership of a business enterprise.”¹ Stocks are a type of financial security and are often, but not always, traded on a stock exchange. Returns for investors in individual stocks are subject to the relative fortunes of the companies and possible dividend payments.

1 Marc Levinson, Guide to Financial Markets: Why They Exist and How They Work, 7th ed. (London and New York: The Economist and PublicAffairs, 2018), p. 154.

Meet FRED

Many financial indicators produced elsewhere are available in Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), an online database maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. FRED enables access to historical time-series data from a variety of sources, and it includes powerful features for data visualization and exporting. This free-to-use database is available at https://fred.stlouisfed.org. Users can browse by category to access data related to “Money, Banking, & Finance,” including interest rates, exchange rates, and financial indicators (which includes bond market indexes, stock market indexes, financial activity measures, and volatility indexes). In addition, the “Prices” category includes data for commodities and cryptocurrencies.

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Stock investors are not guaranteed a return of their initial investment, thus they may lose up to all of their investment in a stock. Furthermore, there is no pre-agreed limit on investors’ potential returns.

A stock market index (also called a share index) is an “index formed by selecting a number of prominent shares traded on a stock exchange and comparing the value of these shares with their value on a stated date in the base year.”² Indexes may track developments broadly across the U.S. stock market or narrowly in specific sectors. Indexes may also be weighted by “the price of the security”³ or market capitalization, which gives “more significance to the firms with the greater market value.”⁴

Mutual funds are a type of investment fund. They employ professional money managers to make investments using pooled money from investors “in accordance with the specified aims of the fund, e.g. high income, maximum growth, etc.”⁵

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs), another type of investment fund, “can be traded on an exchange during the day, just like common stocks.”⁶ ETFs often track a market benchmark (e.g., a stock market index) or a specific sector (e.g., energy or health care).

Selected Stock Indexes

Dow Jones Industrial Average

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA, also called “the Dow” or “the blue chips”) is a price- weighted index that tracks share prices for 30 large companies.⁷ S&P Dow Jones Indices currently manages the long-running DJIA, which began in 1896.

S&P 500

The Standard and Poor’s 500 (S&P 500) is a market-cap weighted index that tracks share prices for 500 large companies.⁸ S&P 500, also run by S&P Dow Jones Indices, began in 1957.

Nasdaq Composite Index

The Nasdaq Composite Index (usually called “the Nasdaq”) tracks prices for securities listed on the Nasdaq (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) exchange, which

2 “Share index (stock market index)” in A Dictionary of Finance and Banking, 6th ed., edited by Jonathan Law (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2018), p. 436.

3 “Price-weighted index” in Peter Moles and Nicholas Terry, The Handbook of International Financial Terms (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 433.

4 “Capitalization-weighted index” in Moles and Terry, Handbook of International Financial Terms, p. 73.

5 “Fund manager (investment manager)” in A Dictionary of Business and Management, 6th ed., edited by Jonathan Law (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 269.

6 International Monetary Fund, Bank for International Settlements, and European Central Bank, Handbook on Securities Statistics (Washington: International Monetary Fund, 2015), p. 22.

7 S&P Dow Jones Indices, Dow Jones Averages Methodology, April 2023, at https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/ documents/methodologies/methodology-dj-averages.pdf.

8 S&P Dow Jones Indices, S&P U.S. Indices Methodology, October 2023, at https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/ documents/methodologies/methodology-sp-us-indices.pdf.

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launched in 1971. The market cap-weighted index is closely associated with the technology sector, which makes up more than half its weight.⁹

Russell 3000 Index

The Russell 3000 Index, created in 1984 and managed by FTSE Russell, is a broad market cap- weighted index tracking share prices for the 3,000 largest publicly traded companies in the United States.¹⁰

• Russell U.S. Indexes

Wilshire 5000 Index

The FT Wilshire 5000 Index, which began in 1974 and is currently affiliated with the Financial Times newspaper, tracks share prices for essentially all U.S. equity securities that have readily available prices. It is a market cap-weighted index.¹¹

• FT Wilshire 5000 Index (Financial Times)

• Indexes (Wilshire)

Individual Companies and Funds

Listed Companies and ETFs

Large public companies headquartered in the United States generally list their shares on the two major U.S. exchanges, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Nasdaq stock exchange. Both exchanges allow users to look up near-real-time data for individual companies and securities on their websites.

• Listings Directory (NYSE)

• Stocks (Nasdaq)

Over-the-Counter Equities

Shares of unlisted public companies, typically smaller firms with “few shareholders and little equity outstanding,”¹² trade in over-the-counter (OTC) transactions.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), an industry group, enables users to look up data on both listed and OTC stocks in the Equities and Options section of its online Market Data Center.

• Market Data Center: Equities and Options

9 Nasdaq Inc., NASDAQ Composite, at https://indexes.nasdaqomx.com/docs/FS_COMP.pdf and Nasdaq Index Methodology: Nasdaq Composite Index, 2020, at https://indexes.nasdaqomx.com/docs/methodology_COMP.pdf.

10 FTSE Russell, Russell U.S. Equity Indices Construction and Methodology, July 2024, at https://research.ftserussell.com/products/downloads/Russell-US-indexes.pdf.

11 Wilshire Advisors LLC, FT Wilshire 5000 Index Series, June 30, 2022, at https://assets-global.website-files.com/ 60f8038183eb84c40e8c14e9/ 639743af92bbfd80973aedc9_FT%20Wilshire%205000%20Index%20Series%20Factsheet.pdf.

12 Levinson, Guide to Financial Markets, p. 178.

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Investment Funds

The Investment Company Institute (ICI), an industry group, publishes weekly, monthly, and quarterly market data for mutual funds, ETFs, and other investment funds.

• Statistics

FINRA’s Market Data Center has a Mutual Funds section.

• Market Data Center: Mutual Funds

Interest Rates and Debt Securities

Businesses, governments, and consumers borrow money for various purposes and through this borrowing create a debt to an investor or lender. Interest is the cost of borrowing and is often conveyed in terms of an interest rate, which is “usually expressed as a percentage of the sum borrowed.”¹³

Debt securities are often called fixed-income securities due to the associated “regular, fixed- interest payments for the use of the money.”¹⁴ Debt securities are distinguished from equity securities by the borrower’s agreement to provide investors both an interest payment and a repayment of the initial investment or principal.

Companies and other borrowers may access short-term funding by transacting in the money market. This is a “network of corporations, financial institutions, investors and governments which deal with the flow of short-term capital”¹⁵ in the form of debt securities with relatively short maturities or cash and cash-equivalents.

General Data Sources

The Federal Reserve’s daily Selected Interest Rates report contains information on a variety of U.S. interest rates,¹⁶ including the effective federal funds rate, the bank prime rate, commercial paper rates, and U.S. government securities (i.e., Treasury securities or Treasuries) interest rates.

• Selected Interest Rates (Daily) – H.15

The online dashboard for Bloomberg’s Bloomberg Fixed Income Indices provides daily updates on borrowing costs in the United States and overseas. Different indexes track different segments of the fixed-income markets; U.S.-specific areas include Treasuries and municipal-bond yields.

• Bloomberg Fixed Income Indices

FINRA’s Fixed Income Data Center provides information on U.S. Treasury and federal agency bonds as well as asset- and mortgage-backed securities, collateralized mortgage obligations, corporate debt, asset-backed securities, and municipal securities.

• Fixed Income Data

13 “Interest rate” in Law, Dictionary of Finance and Banking, p. 255.

14 Hal P. Kirkwood, Strauss’s Handbook of Business Information: A Guide for Librarians, Students, and Researchers, 4th ed. (Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited, 2020), p. 241.

15 Levinson, Guide to Financial Markets, p. 44.

16 In this report, references to daily generally mean weekdays excluding holidays.

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The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), an industry group, releases monthly, quarterly, and annual data on asset-backed securities, corporate bonds, federal agency securities, mortgage-backed securities, municipal securities, and Treasuries.

• U.S. Fixed Income Securities Statistics

Mortgages and Consumer Loans

Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey provides weekly updates on average interest rates for 30- and 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, with historical data back to 1971.

• Mortgage Rates

The Federal Reserve’s monthly Consumer Credit report includes interest rates at commercial banks for new car loans, credit card plans, and personal loans, as well as data on the amount outstanding for student loans, auto loans, and revolving credit such as credit cards.

• Consumer Credit – G.19

The U.S. Department of Education publishes information about federal student loan interest rates on its Federal Student Aid website.

• Interest Rates and Fees for Federal Student Loans

Bankrate.com tracks interest rates and other terms for a wide range of consumer financial products and services, including auto loans, credit cards, home equity loans, private student loans, certificates of deposit (CDs), and savings accounts.¹⁷

U.S. Treasury Securities

The Treasury Department sells debt securities via auction: bills (“T-bills,” maturities of a year or less), notes (maturities in the 2-year to 10-year range), bonds (20- and 30-year maturities), inflation-protected securities (maturities of 5, 10, or 30 years), and floating rate notes (2-year maturities).¹⁸ There is a sizable secondary market for trading in Treasuries.

The official Interest Rate Statistics website provides daily data on interest rates for Treasuries.

• Interest Rate Statistics

FINRA releases weekly data on trading volumes for Treasuries, based on broker-dealer reports to its Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE) system.

• Treasury Aggregate Statistics

SIFMA releases monthly, quarterly, and annual statistics on the Treasuries market.

• U.S. Treasury Securities Statistics

See also resources described above in the “General Data Sources” section.

17 Unlike most information sources discussed in this report, the Bankrate website is aimed at a consumer audience of potential borrowers rather than financial-market participants or researchers.

18 For more information, see CRS Report R40767, How Treasury Issues Debt, by Grant A. Driessen.

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Municipal Bonds

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board operates the Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA) website as a source of real-time data on municipal bonds (also called “munis”) issued by state and local governments.

• Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA)

SIFMA releases monthly, quarterly, and annual statistics on the municipal bond market.

• U.S. Municipal Bonds Statistics

See also resources described above in the “General Data Sources” section.

Money Market

The Federal Reserve tracks commercial paper, a short-term corporate debt instrument, daily.

• Commercial Paper Rates and Outstanding Summary

The Office of Financial Research (OFR) releases daily statistics on short-term funding markets, and monthly data on money market funds.

• OFR Short-Term Funding Monitor

• U.S. Money Market Fund Monitor

The SEC also publishes monthly statistics about money market funds.

• Money Market Fund Statistics

SIFMA releases monthly, quarterly, and annual statistics on money market instruments (e.g., commercial paper) and repurchase agreements (repos).¹⁹

• U.S. Money Market Instruments Statistics

• U.S. Repo Statistics

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York and OFR created the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) as a replacement for the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), a once widely used reference rate that has been discontinued.²⁰ SOFR is based on repo rates and tracks the cost of borrowing money overnight. The New York Fed provides daily updates on its website for SOFR and several other reference rates.

• Secured Overnight Financing Rate Data (New York Fed)

• Reference Rates (New York Fed)

Monetary Policy

The Federal Reserve and its rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) have three statutory goals for monetary policy: “maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long- term interest rates.”²¹ The FOMC sets a federal funds rate target in pursuit of these goals. The New York Fed conducts open-market operations to implement monetary policy decisions.

19 For more information, see CRS In Focus IF11383, Repurchase Agreements (Repos): A Primer, by Marc Labonte.

20 For more information, see CRS In Focus IF11315, The LIBOR Transition, by Marc Labonte.

21 Section 202 of the Federal Reserve Reform Act of 1977 (Title II, P.L. 95-188).

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• Open Market Operations, including target federal funds rate (Federal Reserve)

• Markets Data Dashboard (New York Fed)

Commodity Prices

A commodity is a “primary product” such as coffee, crude oil, rubber, or tin, with “rights to ownership” bought and sold on a commodity exchange.²² Commodity trading often involves derivative contracts, such as futures, options, or swaps.²³ Prices sometimes take the form of regional benchmarks—crude oil prices, for example, include Brent (a global benchmark associated with the North Sea), West Texas Intermediate (a U.S. benchmark based on prices in Cushing, OK), and Dubai/Oman (a Middle East benchmark).²⁴

General Data Sources

CME Group operates large and historically important exchanges, such as the Chicago Board of Trade, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and New York Mercantile Exchange. CME’s website provides near real-time (10-minute delay) market data on agricultural commodities (e.g., butter, cattle, corn, soybeans, and wheat); energy commodities (e.g., crude oil, ethanol, gasoline, and natural gas); and metal commodities (e.g., aluminum, copper, gold, platinum, and silver).

• Delayed Quotes: Agricultural

• Delayed Quotes: Energy

• Delayed Quotes: Metals

The World Bank publishes a monthly “pink sheet” report with global price data for commodities. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also provides monthly statistics on primary commodity prices, with data visualization and exporting features.

• Commodity Markets (World Bank)

• IMF Primary Commodity Prices

Agricultural

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) operates USDA Market News, a website and mobile application providing access to daily, weekly, and other reports containing detailed information on agricultural commodities, such as cotton, dairy, livestock, and tobacco.

• USDA Market News

See also resources described above in the “General Data Sources” section.

Energy

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) releases a Today in Energy report with daily prices for energy commodities, such as crude oil, gasoline, heating oil, natural gas, and propane.

22 “Commodity” and “commodity exchange” in The Penguin Dictionary of Economics, 8th ed., by Graham Bannock and R.E. Baxter (London: Penguin Books, 2011), p. 61.

23 For more information, see CRS In Focus IF10117, Introduction to Financial Services: Derivatives, by Rena S. Miller.

24 U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Role of Benchmarks in the Global Crude Oil Market,” This Week in Petroleum, October 16, 2014.

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EIA also publishes This Week in Petroleum, the Monthly Energy Review, the Annual Energy Outlook, and other reports about energy markets.

• Today in Energy: Daily Prices

• This Week in Petroleum

• Monthly Energy Review

• Annual Energy Outlook

• Markets & Finance

See also resources described above in the “General Data Sources” section.

Metals and Minerals

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) publishes an annual Mineral Commodity Summaries report with statistics on a wide range of materials, including diamonds, gold, iron ore, lithium, nickel, salt, silver, titanium, and tungsten. USGS also publishes monthly and quarterly reports on specific metals and minerals.

• Mineral Commodity Summaries

• Mineral Industry Surveys

See also resources described above in the “General Data Sources” section.

Foreign Exchange Rates

Foreign exchange (also called forex or FX) involves the trading in financial markets of foreign currencies. Interest rates, inflation, and news events can all affect the relative value of one currency compared to another or a basket of multiple currencies.²⁵

The U.S. dollar, the euro, the yen, and the pound sterling are reserve currencies that are “held by a government because it has confidence in [their] stability and intends to use [them] to settle international debts.”²⁶ The dollar has been the main global reserve currency since World War II.²⁷

The Federal Reserve’s weekly Foreign Exchange Rates report provides data for each business day on the U.S. dollar exchange rate for roughly two dozen foreign currencies. It also includes three indexes that track the average value of the dollar: a broad index for major U.S. trading partners, an index for advanced economies, and an index for emerging market economies.

• Foreign Exchange Rates – H.10

The IMF’s online database allows users to view and download daily exchange rate data. It uses Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), the IMF reserve asset, as a reference. The SDR’s value is based on a weighted average of five currencies: the dollar, the euro, the pound sterling, the yen, and China’s renminbi (RMB, also called yuan).

• IMF Exchange Rates

Treasury releases weekly data on U.S. reserve assets, including foreign currencies.

25 Levinson, Guide to Financial Markets, p. 30.

26 “Reserve currency” in Law, Dictionary of Finance and Banking, p. 410.

27 For more information, see CRS In Focus IF11707, The U.S. Dollar as the World’s Dominant Reserve Currency, by Rebecca M. Nelson and Martin A. Weiss.

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• U.S. International Reserve Position

Digital Assets

A digital asset is a “digital representation of value which is recorded on a cryptographically secured distributed ledger or any similar technology.”²⁸ This emerging financial category includes cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, digital tokens, and other instruments that rely on blockchain technology to track ownership.

Cryptocurrencies

Official data sources on cryptocurrency transactions are limited.²⁹ The decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies, their significant price volatility, and other factors present challenges for determining market prices and trading volumes. Information about a cryptocurrency may also vary from one exchange to another.

CoinMarketCap.com operates a dashboard with market data for many cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, and Dogecoin. Cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Binance and Coinbase, also provide market data, such as prices, volume, and market capitalization.

• Today’s Cryptocurrency Prices by Market Cap (CoinMarketCap)

• Cryptocurrency Prices, Charts, and Trends (Binance.US)

• Explore Crypto (Coinbase)

Non-Fungible Tokens

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are unique assets, such as digital artwork, bought and sold on marketplaces, such as OpenSea and LooksRare.³⁰ The NonFungible website tracks this market, including prices and sales.

• Market Tracker (NonFungible)

• Collections (LooksRare)

• Collection Stats (OpenSea)

Financial Market Condition Metrics

Financial market operations typically provide reliable sources of financing for businesses and consumers. However, this financing may become less reliable, more expensive, or unavailable during times of extreme market stress, such as the 2007-2009 financial crisis and the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.³¹ Various metrics allow for monitoring conditions across the financial system as a whole or in specific markets.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s National Financial Conditions Index (NFCI) tracks relative tightening and loosening in overall financial conditions. It updates weekly.

28 As defined in Section 80603 (Division H, Title VI) of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (P.L. 117-58).

29 For more information, see CRS In Focus IF11910, Cryptocurrency Transfers and Data Collection, by Mark P. Keightley and Andrew P. Scott.

30 For more information, see CRS Report R47189, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), by Kristen E. Busch.

31 For more information, see CRS Report R46424, Capital Markets Volatility and COVID-19: Background and Policy Responses, by Eva Su.

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• National Financial Conditions Index (NFCI) Current Data

OFR, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City all produce Financial Stress Indexes. For all three measures, positive values (above zero) indicate greater-than-average stress in financial markets and negative values (below zero) indicate lower- than-average stress. The OFR measure updates daily, St. Louis Fed gauge weekly, and Kansas City Fed index monthly.

• OFR Financial Stress Index

• St. Louis Fed Financial Stress Index

• Kansas City Fed Financial Stress Index

The Cboe Volatility Index (VIX Index), often called “Wall Street’s fear gauge,”³² is a real-time measure of expected volatility in U.S. stock markets. Cboe Global Markets manages the VIX.

• VIX – Quotes Dashboard

The New York Fed’s Corporate Bond Market Distress Index (CMDI), updated monthly, tracks disruptions in markets for corporate bonds.

• Corporate Bond Market Distress Index (CMDI)

Regulatory Agency Data

No single agency is responsible for overseeing U.S. financial markets. Instead, different federal agencies are responsible for different sectors, markets, and financial products.³³

Regulatory agencies collect a large amount of data and make much of it available to the public. Several agencies publish call reports (Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income) for regulated financial institutions: quarterly filings that “must detail the bank’s balance sheet (statement of financial position) and profit and loss (income statement).”³⁴

This section provides links to data published on agency websites. See also OFR’s Interagency Data Inventory, a more-comprehensive catalog of data collected by federal financial regulators.

32 Asjylyn Loder and Gunjan Banerji, “The Snowballing Power of the VIX, Wall Street’s Fear Index,” The Wall Street Journal, June 12, 2017, at https://www.wsj.com/articles/you-dont-know-vix-wall-streets-fear-gauge-is-now-a- multibillion-dollar-market-1497281745; and Landon Thomas Jr., “Day Trading in Wall Street’s Complex ‘Fear Gauge’ Proliferates,” The New York Times, August 28, 2017, at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/business/dealbook/vix- trading.html.

33 For details, see CRS Report R44918, Who Regulates Whom? An Overview of the U.S. Financial Regulatory Framework, by Marc Labonte.

34 “Call report” in Law, Dictionary of Finance and Banking, p. 69.

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Commodity Futures Trading Commission

CFTC regulates futures exchanges, commodity trading advisors, swaps dealers, and related entities. Its website has resources including weekly data on trader commitments in futures and options and on the swaps market.

• Market Data & Analysis

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is a consumer protection regulator. Its website has resources including Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA; P.L. 94-200) data and a consumer complaint database where consumers file complaints about financial products and services.

• Data and Research

Farm Credit Administration

The Farm Credit Administration (FCA) oversees the Farm Credit System (FCS), banks and other institutions serving farmers and ranchers. FCA’s website has a database of call reports filed quarterly by FCS-participating institutions.

• FCS Call Reports

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

FDIC is a banking regulator that oversees federally insured depository institutions, state-chartered thrifts, and state banks that are not members of the Federal Reserve System. FDIC’s website contains a wealth of resources, including quarterly call reports, annual Summary of Deposits reports, and bank failure information going back to 1934.

• Bank Data & Statistics

• BankFind Suite

Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) is a coordinating body for financial regulators. Its Central Data Repository is a database of call reports. FFIEC also provides access to HMDA and Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) data reports.

35 For more information, see CRS Insight IN12067, Banking Provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, by Andrew P. Scott and Marc Labonte.

Data: Know Before You Go

Agencies provide data in a variety of formats. Some may not be machine-readable and require conversion or cleaning before use. This could change with implementation of the Financial Data Transparency Act of 2022 (Title LVIII of P.L. 117-263).³⁵ Even with potential future improvements to financial data access, navigating and using datasets will often require specialized tools, skills, and knowledge. For instance, data tables might employ shorthand terminology or codes and require translation with a data dictionary or codebook before the data are comprehensible. Also, understanding the methods used to collect and prepare datasets for distribution is critical for effective use of those datasets. Methodological information about specific datasets should be available from the agency that published them. More information about U.S. government data is available at https://data.gov. See also CRS In Focus IF12299, The OPEN Government Data Act: A Primer, by Meghan M. Stuessy.

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• Central Data Repository: Public Data Distribution

• On-Line Information Systems

Federal Housing Finance Agency

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) oversees Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Federal Home Loan Banks. FHFA’s website contains resources including a fair lending data dashboard and annual data on mortgage acquisitions by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

• Datasets

Federal Reserve

The Federal Reserve supervises bank holding companies, member state banks, and other financial institutions. It produces many reports and indicators, including the weekly Assets and Liabilities of Commercial Banks in the United States report, the quarterly Financial Accounts of the United States report, and a semiannual Financial Stability Report. See also Fed data on interest rates, consumer credit, commercial paper, and monetary policy (see “Interest Rates and Debt Securities” section) and foreign exchange rates (see “Foreign Exchange Rates” section) described earlier in this report.

• Assets and Liabilities of Commercial Banks in the United States – H.8

• Financial Accounts of the United States – Z.1

• Financial Stability Report

Financial Stability Oversight Council

The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) is a coordinating and oversight body chaired by the Treasury Secretary. Its membership includes the leaders of the CFTC, CFPB, FDIC, FHFA, Federal Reserve, National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and SEC. It publishes an annual report and other studies about the U.S. financial system.

• Annual Reports

• Studies and Reports

National Credit Union Administration

NCUA oversees federally chartered or insured credit unions, as FDIC does for banks. NCUA’s website includes quarterly call report data for credit unions.

• Analysis

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

OCC is a banking regulator, overseeing institutions including national banks and federally chartered thrifts. Its website contains quarterly reports on bank trading and derivatives activities and semiannual reports on interest rate risks.

• Publications & Resources

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Office of Financial Research

OFR collects and analyzes data for the FSOC and its member agencies. Its website contains data visualizations and downloadable datasets on topics such as financial stress (see “Financial Market Condition Metrics” section), repo markets and money market funds (see “Money Market” section), and bank systemic risks (updated annually). It also features the Interagency Data Inventory and the Financial Instrument Reference Database (FIRD), a data dictionary (also listed in the “Glossaries” section below).

• Bank Systemic Risk Monitor

• Financial Instrument Reference Database (FIRD)

• Interagency Data Inventory

Securities and Exchange Commission

SEC oversees capital markets, including public companies, securities exchanges, and investment funds. Its website contains quarterly data on individual securities and the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval (EDGAR) database, which provides open access to filings by public companies including quarterly and annual financial reports.

• SEC and Markets Data

• EDGAR

Glossaries of Financial Terms

• American Banker: Bankers’ Glossary

• Campbell R. Harvey’s Hypertextual Finance Glossary

• Financial Times: The FT Crypto Glossary

• Forbes: The Forbes Financial Glossary

• International Monetary Fund, Bank for International Settlements, and European Central Bank: Handbook on Securities Statistics

• Office of Financial Research: Financial Instrument Reference Database (FIRD)

• Oxford Reference: A Dictionary of Finance and Banking, 6th ed., and The Handbook of International Financial Terms

Related CRS Resources

Introduction to Financial Services

• CRS Report WMR10000, Introduction to Banking and Financial Services, 118th Congress, by Cheryl R. Cooper et al.

• CRS Insight IN11016, CRS Series: Introduction to Financial Services—118th Congress, by Marc Labonte and Raj Gnanarajah

• CRS Video WVB00338, Introduction to Financial Services: Overview of the Financial System, by David W. Perkins, Eva Su, and Cheryl R. Cooper

Resources for Financial Market Data

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• CRS In Focus IF11062, Introduction to Financial Services: Capital Markets, by Eva Su

• CRS In Focus IF10117, Introduction to Financial Services: Derivatives, by Rena S. Miller

• CRS In Focus IF11715, Introduction to Financial Services: The Housing Finance System, by Darryl E. Getter

• CRS In Focus IF10112, Introduction to Financial Services: The International Foreign Exchange Market, by James K. Jackson

• CRS In Focus IF11065, Introduction to Financial Services: The Regulatory Framework, by Marc Labonte

Assets, Markets, and Regulation

• CRS Report R45957, Capital Markets: Asset Management and Related Policy Issues, by Eva Su

• CRS Report R45221, Capital Markets: Public and Private Securities Offerings, by Eva Su

• CRS Report R46424, Capital Markets Volatility and COVID-19: Background and Policy Responses, by Eva Su

• CRS In Focus IF10993, Consumer Credit Markets and Loan Pricing: The Basics, by Darryl E. Getter

• CRS In Focus IF10049, Exchange Rates and Currency Manipulation, by Rebecca M. Nelson

• CRS Report R45318, Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs): Issues for Congress, by Eva Su

• CRS Report R43242, Debates over Exchange Rates: Overview and Issues for Congress, by Rebecca M. Nelson

• CRS In Focus IF11969, Federal Support for the Municipal Bond Markets, by Grant A. Driessen and Darryl E. Getter

• CRS Report R43608, High-Frequency Trading: Background, Concerns, and Regulatory Developments, by Gary Shorter and Rena S. Miller

• CRS Report R40767, How Treasury Issues Debt, by Grant A. Driessen

• CRS In Focus IF11751, Introduction to U.S. Economy: Monetary Policy, by Marc Labonte

• CRS In Focus IF11315, The LIBOR Transition, by Marc Labonte

• CRS Report R47309, Money Market Mutual Funds: Policy Concerns and Reform Options, by Eva Su

• CRS In Focus IF11383, Repurchase Agreements (Repos): A Primer, by Marc Labonte

• CRS In Focus IF12012, Treasury Securities Market Disruptions and Policy Issues, by Eva Su

• CRS Report R44918, Who Regulates Whom? An Overview of the U.S. Financial Regulatory Framework, by Marc Labonte

Resources for Financial Market Data

Congressional Research Service R47379 · VERSION 4 · UPDATED 15

Digital Assets and Fintech

• CRS In Focus IF12405, Introduction to Cryptocurrency, by Paul Tierno

• CRS In Focus IF12450, Stablecoin Policy Issues for the 118th Congress, by Paul Tierno

• CRS Report R47475, Consumer Finance and Financial Technology (Fintech), coordinated by Cheryl R. Cooper

• CRS Insight IN11708, Crypto-Asset Exchanges: Current Practices and Policy Issues, by Eva Su and Andrew P. Scott

• CRS Report R46208, Digital Assets and SEC Regulation, by Eva Su

• CRS In Focus IF11004, Financial Innovation: Digital Assets and Initial Coin Offerings, by Eva Su

• CRS Report R46333, Fintech: Overview of Financial Regulators and Recent Policy Approaches, by Andrew P. Scott

• CRS Report R47189, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), by Kristen E. Busch

Author Information

Ben Leubsdorf Senior Research Librarian

Disclaimer

This document was prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). CRS serves as nonpartisan shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress. It operates solely at the behest of and under the direction of Congress. Information in a CRS Report should not be relied upon for purposes other than public understanding of information that has been provided by CRS to Members of Congress in connection with CRS’s institutional role. CRS Reports, as a work of the United States Government, are not subject to copyright protection in the United States. Any CRS Report may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety without permission from CRS. However, as a CRS Report may include copyrighted images or material from a third party, you may need to obtain the permission of the copyright holder if you wish to copy or otherwise use copyrighted material.