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Overview
Getting startedYour first ten minutesThe dashboardReading a model pageRunning your first screenAlerts and Telegram
GuidesModelsThe ten screensEconomy and Fear and GreedRecession AlertCongressWatchlist and HistoryAccount, plans and billing
MethodologyHow a model is builtThe modelsBacktests and their limitsThe sentiment compositeThe recession diffusion indexData sources and delaysKnown gapsReferences

The sentiment composite

Methodology

Each Fear and Greed dial is a composite of public series, one set per market.

The formula

  1. Each driver is normalised to a score between -1 and +1 against its own recent history.
  2. Each driver carries a sign, so that a higher score always means more greed. The VIX and the high-yield spread are fear drivers; index momentum is a greed driver. Volatility series are stored already inverted (calm reads positive), and a test now guards that, because double-inverting them once made calm markets read as fear.
  3. Drivers older than their tolerance are dropped: five days for a daily series, 14 for weekly, 45 for monthly, 120 for quarterly.
  4. The remaining scores are averaged, then mapped to 0 to 100 as (average + 1) times 50.

The bands

Below 20 extreme fear, 20 to 40 fear, 40 to 60 neutral, 60 to 80 greed, 80 and above extreme greed.

The drivers

MarketDrivers
United StatesS&P 500 momentum, the VIX, the high-yield credit spread, the yield curve (10-year minus 2-year), the count of NYSE 52-week lows, safe-haven demand
South AfricaJSE Top 40 momentum, the rand against the dollar, JSE volatility, the SARB policy signal, and the US high-yield spread as a credit proxy
BitcoinThe Alternative.me index, 30-day volatility, price momentum, market dominance

Sector scores

Each sector has a fixed list of three to five macro series with weights. Each series is detrended and z-scored against one year of its own history, halved and clamped to -1 to +1, so a sector score of 0.25 means the average driver sits about half a standard deviation in that direction and 0.50 about one. Bullish and Bearish start at 0.25 either side of zero; Strong conviction starts at 0.50.

The dashboard's Market Pulse, the Economy dials and the Watchlist all read the same composite and the same driver scores.

Past performance does not guarantee future results. Trading and investing involve significant risk of loss. Nothing on this page is financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any financial product. Everything on the platform is identical for every subscriber on a plan and is never tailored to an individual.