Read the market's temperature, not the noise.
Valuation, stress and liquidity — the indicators long-term investors actually use to judge where they are in the cycle. Every chart, every historical reading and the full methodology are free. Only the most recent readings on daily, weekly and monthly charts are reserved for members.
Valuation
What you pay for a dollar of earnings or output.Warren Buffett once called market capitalisation divided by GDP "probably the best single measure of where valuations…
The real yield is what a lender earns after inflation is stripped out. It is the discount rate that equity valuations…
Corporate earnings yield minus the 10-year Treasury. The arithmetic behind the equity risk premium, built only from public federal data…
The benchmark long-term rate. It sets mortgage pricing, corporate borrowing costs and the discount rate behind every valuation model.
Recession and stress
Whether the cycle is turning and how much strain the system is under.The Sahm rule fires when the three-month average unemployment rate rises half a percentage point above its low for…
One number for how much strain the financial system is under. Zero is average stress; positive means tighter than…
How much the 10-year Treasury yield actually moves: annualised standard deviation of daily changes, in basis points.…
Credit conditions are the price and the availability of borrowing for everyone who is not the government. When they tighten…
Money borrowed against securities to buy more securities. It peaks late in cycles, and when it unwinds it turns a decline into…
The net share of banks tightening business loan terms. Availability rather than price, and it turns two to three quarters before credit spreads do…
The fastest official read on layoffs. Weekly, one week behind, and noisy enough that only the four-week average is worth quoting.
Unmet demand for workers. It turns before hiring does, which makes it an early warning on the labour market rather than a confirmation.
Liquidity and macro
The plumbing: money, reserves, the curve and the dollar.The gap between the 10-year and 2-year Treasury yield is the market's oldest recession gauge. When it turns negative…
The 3-month bill tracks the policy rate almost one-for-one, so the 10Y–3M spread is the cleanest read on whether the…
M2 is the broadest standard measure of money in the U.S. economy. Its year-over-year growth rate is the simplest read…
Reserves are the most liquid asset a bank holds. Their direction is the clearest mechanical read on whether…
The dollar is the price of global liquidity. A broad, trade-weighted measure is a better read than the euro-heavy DXY…
What the bond market charges for a decade of inflation: the 10-year nominal yield minus the TIPS real yield, updated every…
Total bank credit as a growth rate, not a level. Credit is the financing side of spending, so its flow turns before the economy does…
Cash parked at the Fed overnight. It measures the surplus liquidity left after the market has absorbed everything else…
The maturity that tracks Fed expectations. It turns first when the market changes its mind about the next two years of policy.
The price of a dollar in yuan. The fastest read on how global capital feels about China.
The price of overnight money. Every other rate in the economy is built on top of it, which is why one committee decision moves everything.
Real economy and fiscal
Output, jobs, prices and the government's balance sheet.The twelve-month change in the all-items consumer price index. It is what contracts reference, which is not quite what the Fed targets…
Physical output from factories, mines and utilities. The most direct read on the goods-producing economy, and it turns before GDP does…
The share of the labour force without work and actively looking. The most quoted statistic in economics, and one of the slowest to turn…
Total federal debt against nominal output. The broadest fiscal measure, and the one most often quoted without its denominator problem…
Inflation with the volatile bits removed. It is the cleanest monthly read on whether price pressure is broadening or fading.
The index the Fed actually targets. Broader than CPI and chain-weighted, so it treats substitution between products the way shoppers do.
The monthly jobs number. One print can reprice the entire rate curve, even though the first estimate is routinely revised.
What we will not do
Most indicator sites resell vendor data under licences that forbid redistribution, or publish readings nobody can reproduce. Every series here comes from a U.S. federal release — Federal Reserve, Treasury, BEA — and the derived ones show their formula. If a source cannot be used commercially without restrictions, it does not go on this site.
That rules out Shiller's CAPE dataset (CC BY-NC), the AAII and NAAIM surveys (private, no redistribution), and any index level licensed from S&P or CBOE. It also rules out the ICE BofA high-yield spread and Moody's seasoned Baa yield: both are visible on FRED, but their terms forbid reproduction in any form without written permission. Where we wanted one of those readings, we used a public-domain equivalent instead — the Chicago Fed credit subindex rather than a high-yield spread, realised volatility rather than an implied-volatility index.
Indicators describe the past. None of them forecast returns, and a percentile is not a probability statement about next year. Use them to frame the question, not to answer it.
Important
Not investment advice. This page is published for information and education only. It is not a recommendation, solicitation, or offer to buy or sell any security. Market data may be delayed, incomplete, or revised. Indicators describe the past; they do not forecast returns. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Do your own research or consult a licensed financial professional before acting on anything you read here.