How to Read a Trade Data Release

Start with what the number measures

The headline of a monthly trade release is the balance of goods and services. The March 2026 release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Census Bureau reported a deficit of $60.3 billion, with exports of $320.9 billion and imports of $381.2 billion. Later releases have superseded those figures, so we use them here only to show how a release is built.

The headline statistics are seasonally adjusted, but they are not adjusted for price changes. The release shows real goods figures in chained dollars separately. We read that as a prompt to ask whether a movement reflects prices, volumes or both before drawing a conclusion.

We also think it helps to set any change against the size of the totals. In March the deficit rose 4.4 percent, while exports rose 2.0 percent and imports rose 2.3 percent. We think a few points of movement on large totals often says little by itself.

Goods and services come from different places

Goods statistics are compiled from U.S. Customs and Border Protection documents. The release describes them as a complete count of customs documents that is still subject to nonsampling errors, such as reporting, timeliness and low-value transaction estimates. Goods are also published on two bases. The Census Bureau collects goods on a Census basis, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis adjusts them to a balance of payments basis.

Services come from Bureau of Economic Analysis surveys, and monthly values are derived from quarterly data. In the March release, the goods deficit was $88.7 billion and the services surplus was $28.4 billion. The release notes that aircraft data are highly variable and suggests analyzing them separately. It also states that U.S. exports to Canada are reconciled with Canadian import data. A reader who looks only at the total misses that two different measurement systems sit inside it.

Expect revisions

Each month, the prior month's data is revised for late transactions. The March release also announced that on June 9, 2026, goods statistics would be revised back to 2021 and services back to 1999. An advance report on goods appears about 24 to 26 days after the reference month, while the full report appears 34 to 36 days after it.

We treat a single month as a draft. The release includes three-month moving averages, and we think those are a steadier place to start than one month's change.

We have described only what the release and the Census guide say. If you read the same documents and see something we have misstated, please tell us.