Talk to economists about the government shutdown's impact on their forecasts and you'll hear this phrase again and again:
Flying blind.
For economists and investors, "at this moment, we are flying blind," said Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve and now president of Greenspan Associates LLC, a consulting firm.
Greenspan is not alone in feeling a little lost without the compass of government reports.
"We have not been collecting the data, so we are flying blind," said Diane Swonk, past president of the National Association for Business Economics and an economist for Mesirow Financial, a financial services firm.
Even though federal offices were reopened on Thursday morning, government economists have not yet been able to release their long-delayed reports. For example, the Labor Department's September employment report should have been released on Oct. 4. But when the government shut down on Oct. 1, it sent home the workers who should have been there releasing the statistics.
That employment report is very closely watched by investors. Its regular release — precisely at 8:30 a.m. — has the power to move markets.
But you can't see it yet. The Bureau of Labor Statistics website says the much-anticipated report will be released Tuesday.
At the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which issues reports on international trade, personal income and spending, the website read, "Please Note: BEA is currently assessing the impact of the shutdown and will post a revised release schedule as soon as possible."
The government data points — and their release times — are crucial for making decisions about investments. At BLS alone, this month's missing reports include those that measure wages, job creation, unemployment rates, import and export prices and consumer inflation.
The Government Shutdown
Without Key Jobs Data, Markets And Economists Left Guessing