Buzzword: Quarterly forecast

Cloudy skies bring us this week’s Marketplace Money Buzzword: quarterly forecast.

A quarterly forecast isn’t a seasonal weather report, but rather a thunderous new move by the Federal Reserve. It refers to the number of times the public will hear how the economy is doing.

For almost 30 years, the Fed published it’s economic report twice a year, but this week Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said he’d increase the number of headaches on Wall Street by publishing the report four times a year.

Many say it’s Big Ben’s attempt to leave his stamp on the Fed, but these days, it could give him a new nickname: Bad News Bernanke.