The main dashboard tells you what regime we’re in. This page tells you how close we are to a turning point. Five leading signals: recession probability, yield curve, financial conditions, credit spreads, and labor momentum. Each pairs a chart, a percentile vs. history, and a clear threshold for what would change the call.
The takeaway from all four signals below, distilled. Detail sections follow.
Twelve-month-ahead recession odds from the NY Fed's yield-curve model. The Sahm Rule triggers in real time once the 3-month jobless-rate moving average rises 0.5pp above its trailing 12-month low. Historically: Sahm has flagged every post-1970 US recession without a false positive prior to 2024.
The 10Y–3M spread is the NY Fed’s preferred recession model input; 10Y–2Y is the financial-press favorite. Every US recession since 1960 was preceded by a sustained 10Y–3M inversion (12–18 month lead). The dangerous signal isn’t the inversion itself; it’s the bull-steepener that follows (recession starts as the curve un-inverts).
Chicago Fed composites of ~105 risk, credit, and leverage measures. NFCI is the raw reading (z-scored by construction); ANFCI strips out the part explained by current macro. The actionable signal is divergence: when ANFCI tightens while NFCI is flat, conditions are tightening for reasons not justified by the economy. That’s the early warning.
The single best market-priced recession barometer. HY thresholds: <300bp = complacent, 400–600bp = normal, >800bp = stress, >1000bp = crisis. When HY widens while IG stays calm, stress is idiosyncratic (single-name). When both widen together, stress is systemic.