Economic Calendar Fetcher

Fetch upcoming economic events and data releases using FMP API. The script retrieves raw JSON or text; the assistant filters, assesses impact, and generates the chronological Markdown report.

FMP Required

Download Skill Package (.skill) View Source on GitHub

Table of Contents

1. Overview
2. When to Use
3. Prerequisites
4. Quick Start
5. Workflow
6. Resources

1. Overview

Retrieve upcoming economic events and data releases from the Financial Modeling Prep (FMP) Economic Calendar API. This skill fetches scheduled economic indicators including central bank monetary policy decisions, employment reports, inflation data (CPI/PPI), GDP releases, retail sales, manufacturing data, and other market-moving events that impact financial markets.

The skill uses a Python script to query the FMP API and returns raw JSON or text output. The assistant then filters events, assesses market impact, and generates a chronological Markdown report for each scheduled event. No files are generated automatically.

Key Capabilities:

Fetch economic events for specified date ranges (max 90 days)
Support flexible API key provision (environment variable or CLI argument)
Filter by impact level, country, or event type (filtering performed by the assistant)
Present filtered results as structured Markdown reports with impact analysis (generated by the assistant, not the script)
Default to next 7 days for quick market outlook

Data Source:

FMP Economic Calendar API: https://financialmodelingprep.com/api/v3/economic_calendar
Covers major economies: US, EU, UK, Japan, China, Canada, Australia
Event types: Central bank decisions, employment, inflation, GDP, trade, housing, surveys

2. When to Use

Use this skill when the user requests:

Economic Calendar Queries:
- “What economic events are coming up this week?”
- “Show me the economic calendar for the next two weeks”
- “When is the next FOMC meeting?”
- “What major economic data is being released next month?”
Market Event Planning:
- “What should I watch for in the markets this week?”
- “Are there any high-impact economic releases coming?”
- “When is the next jobs report / CPI release / GDP report?”
Specific Date Range Requests:
- “Get economic events from January 1 to January 31”
- “What’s on the economic calendar for Q1 2025?”
Country-Specific Queries:
- “Show me US economic data releases next week”
- “What ECB events are scheduled?”
- “When is Japan releasing their inflation data?”

DO NOT use this skill for:

Past economic events (use market-news-analyst for historical analysis)
Corporate earnings calendars (this skill excludes earnings)
Real-time market data or live quotes
Technical analysis or chart interpretation

3. Prerequisites

FMP API Key (required): Sign up at https://financialmodelingprep.com for a free key (250 requests/day). Set via FMP_API_KEY environment variable or pass --api-key to the script.
Python 3.10+: Required to run skills/economic-calendar-fetcher/scripts/get_economic_calendar.py.
No third-party packages: The script uses only the Python standard library.

4. Quick Start

# Default: next 7 days
python3 skills/economic-calendar-fetcher/scripts/get_economic_calendar.py --api-key YOUR_KEY

# Specific date range (max 90 days)
python3 skills/economic-calendar-fetcher/scripts/get_economic_calendar.py \
  --from 2025-11-01 --to 2025-11-30 \
  --api-key YOUR_KEY \
  --format json

5. Workflow

Follow these steps to fetch and analyze the economic calendar:

Step 1: Obtain FMP API Key

Check for API key availability:

First check if FMP_API_KEY environment variable is set
If not available, ask user to provide API key via chat
If user doesn’t have API key, provide instructions:
- Visit https://financialmodelingprep.com
- Sign up for free account (250 requests/day limit)
- Navigate to API dashboard to obtain key

Example user interaction:

User: "Show me economic events for next week"
Assistant: "I'll fetch the economic calendar. Do you have an FMP API key? I can use the FMP_API_KEY environment variable, or you can provide your API key now."

Step 2: Determine Date Range

Set appropriate date range based on user request:

Default (no specific dates): Today + 7 days User specifies period: Use exact dates (validate format: YYYY-MM-DD) Maximum range: 90 days (FMP API limitation)

Examples:

“Next week” → Today to +7 days
“Next two weeks” → Today to +14 days
“January 2025” → 2025-01-01 to 2025-01-31
“Q1 2025” → 2025-01-01 to 2025-03-31

Validate date range:

Ensure start date ≤ end date
Ensure range ≤ 90 days
Warn if querying past dates

Step 3: Execute API Fetch Script

Run the get_economic_calendar.py script with appropriate parameters:

Basic usage (default 7 days):

python3 skills/economic-calendar-fetcher/scripts/get_economic_calendar.py --api-key YOUR_KEY

With specific date range:

python3 skills/economic-calendar-fetcher/scripts/get_economic_calendar.py \
  --from 2025-01-01 \
  --to 2025-01-31 \
  --api-key YOUR_KEY \
  --format json

Using environment variable (no –api-key needed):

export FMP_API_KEY=your_key_here
python3 skills/economic-calendar-fetcher/scripts/get_economic_calendar.py \
  --from 2025-01-01 \
  --to 2025-01-07

Script parameters:

--from: Start date (YYYY-MM-DD) - default: today
--to: End date (YYYY-MM-DD) - default: today + 7 days
--api-key: FMP API key (optional if FMP_API_KEY env var set)
--format: Output format (json or text) - default: json
--output: Output file path (optional, default: stdout)

Handle errors:

Invalid API key → Ask user to verify key
Rate limit exceeded (429) → Suggest waiting or upgrading FMP tier; re-run after the wait
Network errors → Check connection and re-run the script
Invalid date format → Provide correct format example

Step 4: Parse and Filter Events

Process the JSON response from the script:

Parse event data: Extract all events from API response
Apply user filters if specified:
- Impact level: “High”, “Medium”, “Low”
- Country: “US”, “EU”, “JP”, “CN”, etc.
- Event type: FOMC, CPI, Employment, GDP, etc.
- Currency: USD, EUR, JPY, etc.

Filter examples:

“Show only high-impact events” → Filter impact == “High”
“US events only” → Filter country == “US”
“Central bank decisions” → Search event name for “Rate”, “Policy”, “FOMC”, “ECB”, “BOJ”

Event data structure:

{
  "date": "2025-01-15 14:30:00",
  "country": "US",
  "event": "Consumer Price Index (CPI) YoY",
  "currency": "USD",
  "previous": 2.6,
  "estimate": 2.7,
  "actual": null,
  "change": null,
  "impact": "High",
  "changePercentage": null
}

Step 5: Assess Market Impact

Evaluate the market significance of each event:

Impact Level Classification (from FMP):

High Impact: Major market-moving events
- FOMC rate decisions, ECB/BOJ policy meetings
- Non-Farm Payrolls (NFP), CPI, GDP
- Market typically shows 0.5-2%+ intraday volatility
Medium Impact: Significant but less volatile
- Retail Sales, Industrial Production
- PMI surveys, Consumer Confidence
- Housing data, Durable Goods Orders
Low Impact: Minor indicators
- Weekly jobless claims (unless extreme)
- Regional manufacturing surveys
- Minor auction results

Additional Context Factors:

Current Market Sensitivity:
- High inflation environment → CPI/PPI elevated importance
- Recession fears → Employment data more critical
- Rate cut speculation → Central bank meetings crucial
Surprise Potential:
- Compare estimate vs. previous reading
- Large expected changes = higher attention
- Consensus uncertainty = higher impact potential
Event Clustering:
- Multiple related events same day = amplified impact
- Example: CPI + Retail Sales + Fed speech = Very High impact day
Forward Significance:
- Does this event influence upcoming central bank decisions?
- Is this a preliminary or final reading?
- Will this data be revised?

Step 6: Generate Output Report

Responsibility: The script outputs raw JSON or text. The assistant performs this step using the script’s output. No Markdown files are generated automatically; results are displayed in chat and can be saved to reports/ on request.

Create structured markdown report with the following sections:

Report Header:

# Economic Calendar
**Period:** [Start Date] to [End Date]
**Report Generated:** [Timestamp]
**Total Events:** [Count]
**High Impact Events:** [Count]

Event Listing (Chronological):

For each event, provide:

## [Date] - [Day of Week]

### [Event Name] ([Impact Level])
- **Country:** [Country Code] ([Currency])
- **Time:** [HH:MM UTC]
- **Previous:** [Value]
- **Estimate:** [Consensus Forecast]
- **Impact Assessment:** [Your analysis]

**Market Implications:**
[2-3 sentences on why this matters, what markets watch for, typical reaction patterns]

---

Example Event Entry:

## 2025-01-15 - Wednesday

### Consumer Price Index (CPI) YoY (High Impact)
- **Country:** US (USD)
- **Time:** 14:30 UTC (8:30 AM ET — converted by assistant based on US DST calendar)
- **Previous:** 2.6%
- **Estimate:** 2.7%
- **Impact Assessment:** Very High - Core inflation metric for Fed policy decisions

**Market Implications:**
CPI reading above estimate (>2.7%) likely strengthens hawkish Fed expectations, potentially pressuring equities and supporting USD. Reading at or below 2.7% could reinforce disinflation narrative and support risk assets. Options market pricing 1.2% S&P 500 move on release day.

---

Summary Section:

## Key Takeaways

**Highest Impact Days:**
- [Date]: [Events] - [Combined impact rationale]

**Central Bank Activity:**
- [Summary of any scheduled Fed/ECB/BOJ meetings or speeches]

**Major Data Releases:**
- Employment: [NFP, Unemployment Rate dates]
- Inflation: [CPI, PPI dates]
- Growth: [GDP, Retail Sales dates]

**Market Positioning Considerations:**
[2-3 bullets on how traders might position around these events]

**Risk Events:**
[Highlight any particularly high-uncertainty or surprise-potential events]

Filtering Notes:

If the user requested specific filters, note at the top:

**Filters Applied:**
- Impact Level: High only
- Country: US
- Events shown: [X] of [Y] total events in date range

Output:

Results are displayed in chat. No files are generated automatically.
To save raw JSON/text data: use --output reports/economic_calendar_[START]_to_[END].json when running the script.
To save the Markdown report: ask the assistant to write it to reports/ after generating it in chat.

6. Resources

References:

skills/economic-calendar-fetcher/references/fmp_api_documentation.md

Scripts:

skills/economic-calendar-fetcher/scripts/get_economic_calendar.py