FRED Datasets#

macroforecast currently exposes three official FRED-family data sources and two combined data loaders.

Dataset	Loader	Native role	Recommended use
FRED-MD	`mf.data.load_fred_md()`	Monthly national macro panel	Monthly targets and monthly national controls.
FRED-QD	`mf.data.load_fred_qd()`	Quarterly national macro panel	Quarterly targets and quarterly national controls.
FRED-SD	`mf.data.load_fred_sd()`	State-level mixed-frequency panel	State-level predictors, targets, or controls.
FRED-MD + FRED-SD	`mf.data.load_fred_md_sd()`	Combined monthly panel by default	Monthly state analysis with national controls.
FRED-QD + FRED-SD	`mf.data.load_fred_qd_sd()`	Combined quarterly panel by default	Quarterly state analysis with national controls.

Dataset-specific pages live under this FRED Datasets section.

FRED Datasets

Loader Boundary#

macroforecast.data is responsible for:

downloading or copying raw sources,
parsing raw files,
normalizing date-indexed pandas panels,
storing raw-file provenance,
recording official FRED-MD/FRED-QD t-codes,
recording FRED-SD series metadata,
combining FRED-MD/FRED-QD with FRED-SD when requested,
warning when a combined panel changes a source series’ native frequency.

macroforecast.preprocessing is responsible for:

applying FRED-MD/FRED-QD official t-codes after data loading,
applying user-specified FRED-SD t-codes,
handling t-code lag rows,
outlier handling,
imputation,
frame-edge handling.

FRED-SD t-codes are not official. They must be explicitly supplied or built with mf.preprocessing.fred_sd_transform_codes().

Frequency Rule Of Thumb#

Use FRED-MD for monthly national variables and FRED-QD for quarterly national variables. Do not use FRED-MD as a default quarterly substitute or FRED-QD as a default monthly substitute.

Allowed but discouraged cases:

Case	Why discouraged	What happens
`load_fred_md_sd(frequency="quarterly")`	FRED-MD is monthly; FRED-QD is the natural quarterly national source.	The package proceeds, writes a parse note, and records monthly-to-quarterly conversions.
`load_fred_qd_sd(frequency="monthly")`	FRED-QD is quarterly; FRED-MD is the natural monthly national source.	The package proceeds, writes a parse note, and records quarterly-to-monthly conversions.

Conversion Warnings#

Combined loaders proceed when a source series must be converted from monthly to quarterly or quarterly to monthly, but they do not do it silently. They emit a UserWarning and store the same information in:

bundle.metadata["frequency_conversion_warnings"]

This lets users inspect exactly which variables changed frequency and which rule was used.

Dataset Docs Status#

The FRED dataset pages now cover:

standalone FRED-MD, FRED-QD, and FRED-SD loaders,
official URLs and direct current-source links where applicable,
FRED-MD/FRED-QD official t-codes and source groups,
FRED-SD variable, state, native-frequency, observed-span, and date-anchor metadata,
FRED-MD+FRED-SD and FRED-QD+FRED-SD combination behavior,
frequency conversion warnings and preserved combined-panel metadata.

The remaining data-documentation surface is custom data ingestion: load_custom_csv(), load_custom_parquet(), and in-memory custom_dataset() are documented in Data Reference, but they do not yet have a standalone dataset-guide page.

Official URLs#

Dataset	Official page	Direct current source used by package
FRED-MD	https://www.stlouisfed.org/research/economists/mccracken/fred-databases	https://www.stlouisfed.org/-/media/project/frbstl/stlouisfed/research/fred-md/monthly/current.csv
FRED-QD	https://www.stlouisfed.org/research/economists/mccracken/fred-databases	https://www.stlouisfed.org/-/media/project/frbstl/stlouisfed/research/fred-md/quarterly/current.csv
FRED-SD	https://www.stlouisfed.org/research/economists/owyang/fred-sd	The loader resolves the latest official “Data by Series” workbook from the FRED-SD page.