Monetary policy aims to control the money supply and credit in an economy to achieve objectives like full employment, investment growth, price stability, and balanced trade. Central banks use quantitative tools like bank rates, open market operations, and reserve requirements as well as qualitative tools like margin requirements and moral persuasion to influence monetary conditions. Economic indicators provide statistical data on the current state of the economy and can be leading, coincident, or lagging based on whether they change before, with, or after the overall economy. Coincident indicators reflect present conditions while leading indicators predict future performance and lagging indicators trail overall economic changes.