Subject: Re: GGT Timing update
More about the FRED data...... Sometimes the FRED data gets readjusted long after the first report and multiple times. Here, for example is the Real Retail and Food Services Sales (RRSFS.txt) value for one particular month (Feb 2022) from different file dates:
rrsfs-2022-03-16: 2022-02-01 231587
rrsfs-2022-04-14: 2022-02-01 233096
rrsfs-2022-05-11: 2022-02-01 233216
rrsfs-2022-05-17: 2022-02-01 233062
rrsfs-2022-06-15: 2022-02-01 233062
rrsfs-2022-07-15: 2022-02-01 233062
rrsfs-2022-08-17: 2022-02-01 233062
rrsfs-2022-09-15: 2022-02-01 233062
rrsfs-2022-10-14: 2022-02-01 233062
rrsfs-2022-11-16: 2022-02-01 233062
rrsfs-2022-12-15: 2022-02-01 233062
rrsfs-2023-01-18: 2022-02-01 233062
rrsfs-2023-02-14: 2022-02-01 232712
rrsfs-2023-02-15: 2022-02-01 232712
rrsfs-2023-03-15: 2022-02-01 232656
rrsfs-2023-04-14: 2022-02-01 231820
rrsfs-2023-04-24: 2022-02-01 229631
rrsfs-2023-05-16: 2022-02-01 229631
rrsfs-2023-06-15: 2022-02-01 229631
rrsfs-2023-07-18: 2022-02-01 229631
rrsfs-2023-08-15: 2022-02-01 229631
rrsfs-2023-09-14: 2022-02-01 229631
rrsfs-2023-10-17: 2022-02-01 229631
Maybe my script is overkill and you'd be fine with just the most recent file. I dunno, I just keep all the unique files according to "Last Updated". But you do need to grab the file right before you make any decisions based on the data.
Of course, if you are doing backtesting you need to use the data that was current at that time, not the most recent data, to avoid look-ahead bias.