This tag gathers the analysis of leading signals of economic activity: PMIs, confidence surveys, economic surprises, financial conditions, composite indicators. These data help anticipate cyclical inflections before they appear in official statistics. It covers the reading and interpretation of these signals.
Equity markets can rally on weak economic data when expectations of monetary easing or improving liquidity outweigh the direct impact on earnings. This forward-looking dynamic explains apparently paradoxical sessions.
Equity markets often turn before economic cycles materialize in macroeconomic statistics. This forward-looking mechanism, structural to financial markets, explains the persistent timing gap between equity prices and economic data.
GDP growth does not reflect equity performance. The aggregate measure conflates productive and unproductive activity, while indices price concentrated future profits. Growth composition and timing lags make any direct correlation misleading.
Markets price the absence of catastrophe, not the quality of capital allocation. As long as no rupture is visible, an economy or an asset class can accumulate inefficiency without triggering any correction — and it is precisely this absence of…
Since 1990, seven of the eight breaches of the 50 threshold by the VIX have been followed by an S&P 500 rebound over the twelve-month horizon. The empirical regularity is documented and stable; its operational scope remains nevertheless limited by…
Since November 2024, the average VIX stands at 15.1 over eighteen months, 4.4 points below its 1990-2025 average. This durable compression recalls 2017 and 2019 — levels that preceded Volmageddon and the COVID crash — but the macro composition underlying…
Since 1990, the VIX has crossed 30 twenty-four times, 50 eight times, and 80 three times. Each spike documents a specific market dislocation; none repeats identically. The empirical catalog that follows covers the seven major episodes from 1990 to 2026…
T10YIE measures what markets expect; CPI measures what has actually materialized. The gap between the two is not an anomaly to be corrected — it is a signal in its own right, whose reading requires distinguishing level, direction, and cycle…
Forecasts do not miss cycle turns randomly. They miss them in the same direction every time: underestimating reversals, overestimating recoveries. The bias is methodological, not a competence gap — and it explains why the consensus arrives last to every turning point.
An isolated figure is never a signal. Three filters separate cyclical information from ambient noise: persistence over time, sectoral diffusion, and consistency across independent sources. Any indicator that fails all three is noise, regardless of how loud the coverage.
