Economic Indicators
The macro backdrop behind the market internals. Every indicator with full FRED-sourced history, SPY overlay, and a plain-English reading of the latest print.
The market value of all US public equities as a percent of GDP — Warren Buffett's "best single measure" of valuation, at records.
Permits issued for new homes — housing starts' one-to-two-month leading edge.
Monthly applications to start a new business — the entrepreneurship pulse.
Headline US consumer inflation — index level and year-over-year rate since 1947.
The Michigan survey of household confidence — a contrarian gauge at extremes since 1952.
How many Americans stay on unemployment benefits — the labor market's leak detector.
The aggregate P/E of the whole US market — public equity value as a multiple of after-tax corporate profits since the 1950s.
US consumer inflation stripped of food and energy — the underlying trend.
The Fed's preferred inflation gauge — the exact number behind "2% inflation."
The OECD's standardized read on US consumer optimism — 100 is the long-run average.
The gold-standard gauge of US home prices — repeat-sales, national, with the appreciation rate.
North American freight shipment volumes — a real-time pulse on goods moving through the economy.
Cash, deposits & money-fund shares as a share of household financial assets — the retail "cash on the sidelines" gauge.
Total household borrowing outside mortgages — credit cards, auto, and student loans.
Share of credit-card balances past due — an early read on household financial stress.
An 85-indicator composite of US economic activity — zero marks trend growth.
Total US after-tax corporate profits and how fast they're growing.
New orders for nondefense capital goods ex-aircraft — the business-investment pulse.
Bank lending to businesses — the credit-demand side of the corporate cycle.
How hard US industry is running its productive capacity — a margin & inflation pressure gauge.
Single-family and multifamily construction flows — what's starting vs what's finishing.
New factory orders for goods built to last — a forward read on business investment.
The trade-weighted value of the US dollar — a master variable for global risk and earnings.
US federal debt held by the public as a share of GDP — the WWII-to-now fiscal arc.
The Fed's policy rate — the lever behind every other interest rate in the economy.
A single number for how tight or loose US financial conditions are right now.
A real-time stress gauge built from 18 market series — zero is normal.
The government's read on for-hire freight output — trucking, rail, water, air, and pipeline combined.
The Federal Reserve's total assets — the scale of QE, QT, and the liquidity backdrop.
New residential construction breaking ground — one of the economy's earliest cyclical movers.
New Class 8 truck sales — a cyclical recession bellwether that leads the business cycle.
The typical US home value in dollars — Zillow's smoothed, seasonally adjusted mid-tier index.
What American homeowners own vs owe — Z.1 housing wealth, equity, and mortgage debt.
How many homes are actually listed for sale across the US — Zillow's active-inventory count.
Real output of US factories, mines, and utilities — a cyclical read that often leads GDP.
Factory output alone — the manufacturing core of industrial production, stripped of mining and utilities.
How many months of sales US businesses hold in inventory — a clean recession early-warning.
What markets and models expect for inflation, short end to long — and when they diverge.
Monthly involuntary separations from JOLTS — an early read on corporate distress.
Workers jobless for six months or more — the labor market's most entrenched slack.
The OECD composite leading indicator — designed to flag business-cycle turning points months ahead.
The net share of banks tightening business loans — one of the most reliable recession leads.
The rate behind most US home purchases — the housing market's main throttle.
The stock of spendable money in the US economy — and how fast it's growing.
Total assets in US money market funds — the cash-on-the-sidelines and flight-to-safety gauge.
How much investors have borrowed against their portfolios — leverage that amplifies both rallies and unwinds.
How many months it would take to sell the new-home inventory at the current sales pace.
The share of single-family mortgages at commercial banks that are past due.
The middle American household's annual income — the denominator of every affordability argument.
The Fed's family of inflation gauges — broader coverage than CPI, usually a touch cooler.
Inflation at the wholesale level — what producers receive before goods reach you.
How uncertain the policy environment is, read from news, tax law, and forecaster spread.
The monthly change in US jobs — the most market-moving release on the calendar.
The share of working-age Americans in the workforce — context the jobless rate can't give you.
Total income Americans receive from all sources — the fuel behind consumer spending.
Profit per dollar of output for nonfinancial corporations — the macro margin gauge.
Output per hour in the nonfarm business sector — the engine of non-inflationary growth.
US home prices adjusted for CPI inflation — the long-run housing-valuation gauge, with the 2006 and 2022 peaks in plain view.
Total receipts at US retail and food-service establishments — the pulse of consumer spending.
The early, food-services-excluded estimate of monthly retail spending — first read of the cycle.
Retail spending adjusted for inflation — the true volume of what consumers buy.
The official 0/1 flag for whether the US economy is in an NBER-dated recession.
A model-based 0-100% estimate of whether the US economy is currently in recession.
Cash held by individual investors in money funds — a weekly read on retail risk appetite.
Inflation-adjusted consumer outlays — the ~70% of GDP that drives the economy.
What the bond market prices the Fed to do next — the 2-year yield minus the funds rate.
How many months the resale inventory would last at the current sales pace.
Stocks priced in money supply — is the market expensive relative to the liquidity behind it?
Money-fund and bank-deposit balances relative to the value of the US stock market — the "cash on the sidelines" gauge, near record lows.
The S&P 500 priced against ten years of real earnings — Robert Shiller's cyclically adjusted P/E, monthly since 1881.
A real-time recession signal that trips when unemployment starts climbing fast.
The share of disposable income households save — the consumer's shock absorber.
Net US exports minus imports — the deficit that subtracts from GDP and pressures the dollar.
The share of US household net worth held by the wealthiest 1% — a concentration gauge.
The US Treasury curve — 3-month, 2-, 10-, and 30-year yields, daily since 1962.
Existing plus new home sales — the combined annualized pace of US home transactions.
The monthly principal & interest a buyer of the typical US home signs up for at current rates.
The U-3 jobless rate — the headline read on US labor-market slack since 1948.
Labor cost per unit of output — the wage-driven pressure on corporate margins and inflation.
The total pipeline of US housing units currently being built.