Trade Balance: release dates, results and history
Trade Balance last printed -88.6B on Thu, Sep 3, 2026 against a -90.0B consensus forecast and a -73.3B prior, a +0.33 standard-deviation surprise. The next release is Tuesday, October 6, 2026 at 8:30 AM ET. Captured live by Helious the moment it printed.
Net exports sit inside the GDP arithmetic, so a swing in the trade gap pulls quarterly growth trackers like GDPNow along with it, sometimes by full tenths. Tariffs put this release back in play. Importers rush shipments in ahead of a new duty and then hand the volume back the month after, which distorts the deficit and whipsaws the GDP estimates built on it. The advance goods report lands earlier, though, and often takes the reaction with it.
The trend
How it moves Treasuries
There is no clean sign on this one. A wider deficit knocks the GDP trackers down, which is mildly bullish for Treasuries, but the same wider deficit can mean import demand is running strong, and that reads the other way. When bonds do move on it, they are moving on the revised tracker rather than on the print itself. See it scored live on the Helious desk, or read how the standard-deviation surprise is computed.
Recent prints, as captured by the desk
| DATE | ACTUAL | FORECAST | PRIOR | SURPRISE (SD) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -88.6B | -90.0B | -73.3B | +0.33 | ABOVE FORECAST | |
| -73.3B | -73.0B | -77.6B | -0.07 | ON THE SCREWS | |
| $-77.6B | $-78.0B | $-55.9B | +0.10 | ON THE SCREWS |
The 3 most recent prints from the desk's live capture, which began in July 2026, so what you see here is a sample rather than the whole record. Every row links the print page published the moment that number landed, and the full graded history is served by the API.
Official series history
| PERIOD | VALUE ($M) | PRIOR | CHANGE |
|---|---|---|---|
| -$88.6B | -$71.2B | -$17.4B | |
| -$71.2B | -$75.8B | +$4.6B | |
| -$75.8B | -$52.9B | -$22.9B | |
| -$52.9B | -$53.7B | +$0.8B | |
| -$53.7B | -$52.5B | -$1.2B | |
| -$52.5B | -$52.7B | +$0.2B | |
| -$52.7B | -$76.1B | +$23.4B | |
| -$76.1B | -$63.9B | -$12.2B |
These are the most recent official rows, and the chart above draws the longer series behind them. The desk-captured prints higher up the page carry the consensus forecast and the standard-deviation surprise as they stood the moment each number landed.
Monthly, ~first week for the month two prior · 8:30 AM ET · download a sample (CSV, recent rows), free to cite with a link to this page. The full history comes through the Helious API and MCP at api.helious.io/mcp, with depth set by plan.