Some inputs are not available todayEverything that depends on them is left out rather than filled in: MOVE (^MOVE)
Range
Current market status
The model's read of the latest close. Every line is computed from the charts below.
Outlook
The most likely regime at each horizon, and the three risks that matter most there.
How to read this
30 days: today's model, driven by price against the 50-day averages, 3-month momentum and current volatility.
180 days: the same model run only on the MA50-versus-MA200 trends, with volatility pulled halfway back to normal, since volatility mean-reverts.
90 days: the average of the two.
These are conditional scenarios: what the current trends imply if they persist. They are not forecasts.
Final dashboard
Every indicator, its trend and what it signals.
How to read this
For SPY, TLT, TIP and GLD the signal is the asset's own trend: 🟢 rising, 🔴 falling.
For the indicators the signal is what the move means for risk assets: a rising VIX, MOVE, TLT/SPY, real yield and so on is 🔴.
Breakeven inflation is read by level: 🟢 in the 2.0–2.5% range, 🟡 slightly outside it, 🔴 above 3.0% or below 1.75%.
Trend combines price against the 50-day average, the 50-day against the 200-day, and 3-month momentum. Anything within ±0.25 is flat.
Portfolio manager conclusion
The page in twelve lines.
Tactical recommendations
Macro regime model
Probability of each of eight regimes. The eight always sum to 100%.
How to read this
Each regime has a score: a weighted blend of trend and level signals from SPY, TLT, TIP, GLD, VIX, MOVE, the five ratios, the real yield, breakevens, the yield curve and the Fed's recent moves.
The scores go through a softmax to become probabilities, so a regime only wins clearly when its signals agree with each other.
Read the top two together. A 35% / 30% split is a transition, not a call.
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Option-income environment score
How favourable today's market is for selling option premium, from 0 to 100.
VIX scores best between about 16 and 24. Below that, premium is thin; above about 30, the premium is pay for real gap risk.
MOVE scores best when low, because bond stress spills into every asset. VIX/MOVE scores best near the middle of its range.
TLT/SPY falling (risk-on) adds points. Rising GLD/TLT, an unstable TIP/TLT, rising real yields and breakevens outside 2.0–2.5% all take points away.
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Option strategy suitability
Ten premium strategies, rated against today's volatility, trend and tail-risk readings.
How to read this
Each strategy blends a few factors: premium (how much options pay), trend (SPY up or down), range (how trendless SPY is), calm (VIX against its norm) and safety (the inverse of tail risk).
Strangles and straddles take an extra penalty for tail risk because their loss is undefined.
The main driver is the factor that moved the strategy's score most, in whichever direction.
Long stock + protective long put + covered calls + credit spreads, rated on seven risks.
Practical recommendations
TLT vs the Fed cycle
TLT with its 50- and 200-day averages. Every FOMC hike (▲) and cut (▼) is marked. The panel below shows the policy rate, the effective rate and the 2-year and 10-year yields.
How to read this
TLT holds 20+ year Treasuries. Its price falls when long yields rise.
A move that is fully priced in shows up before the decision: TLT is already falling ahead of hikes, or rising ahead of cuts, and the 2-year yield has done most of the moving.
A surprise shows up after the decision instead, as a sharp move once it is announced.
Long bonds often rally after the first cut, then sell off if the market decides cutting means more inflation. Sep 2024 is the textbook case.
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Did TLT see it coming?
Relative performance
SPY, TLT, TIP and GLD rebased to 100 at the start of the selected range, on a log scale. Shaded: recessions and crises, the inflation cycle, and the Fed's hiking and cutting cycles.
How to read this
Log scale: equal vertical distances are equal percentage moves.
Grey bands are recessions and crises (2001, GFC, COVID). The amber band is the 2021–23 inflation cycle.
Red bands are hiking cycles and blue bands are cutting (pivot) cycles. Both are derived from the Fed target series.
Changing the range rebases every line to 100 at its new start.
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TLT / SPY
Long Treasuries relative to the S&P 500: the cleanest one-line risk-on/risk-off gauge.
TIP is much shorter in duration than TLT, so this ratio also rises whenever long yields climb. Read it alongside the breakeven chart.
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GLD / TIP
Gold relative to inflation-linked bonds: two inflation hedges, one of which trusts the central bank.
How to read this
Rising: concerns about monetary credibility, gold stronger than inflation-linked bonds, stagflation risk increasing.
Falling: inflation expectations stabilizing, TIPS preferred over gold.
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10-year real yield (DFII10)
The yield on 10-year TIPS: what a Treasury pays after inflation, with 50- and 200-day averages.
How to read this
Real yields are the opportunity cost of holding gold. Gold pays nothing, so when a risk-free bond pays 2.5% above inflation, holding gold costs 2.5% a year in forgone real income.
When real yields fall, that cost falls and gold usually rises. Over the past two decades this has been the most reliable single driver of GLD, though central-bank buying has weakened the link since 2022.
Rising real yields also tighten financial conditions. Long bonds fall directly, and equities fall through their valuation multiple, growth stocks most of all.
Falling real yields with rising breakevens is the reflation mix that favours gold. Falling real yields with falling breakevens is a growth scare that favours bonds.
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How the real yield is moving the other assets
10-year breakeven inflation (T10YIE)
The inflation rate priced into the gap between nominal and inflation-linked Treasuries.
How to read this
Below 2.0%: low inflation expectations.
2.0–2.5%: the normal range, consistent with the Fed's 2% target.
Above 2.5%: elevated inflation expectations.
Above 3.0%: significant inflation concern.
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VIX
The 30-day implied volatility of the S&P 500, with 50- and 200-day averages.
How to read this
Below 15: low volatility.
15–25: normal.
25–40: elevated risk.
Above 40: panic.
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MOVE index
Implied volatility of Treasury options: the bond market's VIX.
How to read this
Rising: Treasury volatility and rate uncertainty are increasing.
Falling: a stable bond market and stable rate expectations.
Roughly: below 80 is calm, 80–120 is normal, and above 130 is stressed. March 2020 and October 2022 both peaked above 160.
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VIX / MOVE
Equity volatility relative to Treasury volatility: which market is more afraid.
How to read this
High: stock-market fear, with equity stress dominating.
Low: bond-market fear. Fixed income is anticipating an economic change, which can be an early warning of a Fed pivot.
MOVE is quoted on a much larger scale than VIX, so the level of the ratio means little. Its trend and its distance from its own history are what count.
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Rolling 90-day correlations
Correlations of daily changes over a rolling window. +1 means the pair moves together, −1 opposite, 0 independently.
How to read this
Yields enter as daily changes in points and everything else as daily returns.
The percentile places today's reading within the past year.
Correlations are regimes in their own right. Stocks and bonds hedged each other from 2000 to 2021, then fell together through the 2022 inflation shock.
Fed anticipation analysis
TLT returns 1, 3 and 6 months either side of every decision since TLT launched, each classified as priced in or a surprise.
How to read this
Fully priced in: over the 3 months before the decision, the 2-year yield had already moved at least 75% of the decision's size in its direction, and TLT had leaned the expected way (down ahead of hikes, up ahead of cuts).
Partially priced in: the 2-year yield had moved 25–75% of the way, or the full amount without TLT confirming.
Surprise: the 2-year yield had moved less than 25% of the way, or in the opposite direction.
Windows are 21, 63 and 126 trading days. The anchor is the last close before the effective date, which since 2008 is the announcement-day close.
Summary by verdict
Every decision
Federal Reserve timeline
Every change in the fed funds target since 1982, from FRED (DFEDTAR, then the DFEDTARU/DFEDTARL range from Dec 2008).
Hiking and cutting cycles
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How this page works
Prices come from Norgate (CAPITAL-adjusted, dividends excluded, so ratios are price ratios), MOVE from Yahoo, and rates, real yields and breakevens from FRED.
Every statistic is computed on full daily history. Before the last five years the page embeds weekly points to keep the file small, so a 200-day average on the page is a real 200-day average.
Missing data is never filled in. A series that could not be fetched is named at the top, and everything that depends on it is left out.
The regime model, recession probability, option score and strategy ratings are transparent heuristics over market prices. Their weights are in macro_regime/sources/universe.py.
For information only. This is not investment advice. Market-implied readings describe what prices are discounting, not what will happen.