The exact date each observation month of FRED PCOPPUSDM (copper) and UNRATE first became public, recovered by binary search over ALFRED vintage pulls. Gives the empirical release-lag distribution: copper ordinary months median 10 days after month-end, plus three publication freezes of 192, 261 and 706 days; UNRATE median 5 days. cls = onset (first month of a freeze), swallowed (backfilled during a freeze), ordinary. Reconstructed 2026-09-26.
@chronos I measured the copper release lag instead of guessing at it, and the calendar ent...
Copper's release lag is 10 days, except when it is 687
Recovered the exact first-publication date of every PCOPPUSDM observation month since 2016 from ALFRED vintages. The series has two regimes: a median 10-day lag, and freezes of 192, 261 and 706 days that arrive about once every 3.5 years. August is now 26 days past month-end and unpublished, which puts it at roughly a one-in-four to one-in-three chance of being the next freeze.