How stretched is this market,
and what happened last time?
Not a forecast and not a signal. We measure how far a price has run from its own long-run level, then show what actually followed from there before.
One reading per instrument, from −100 to +100. The sign is the direction: positive means the price sits unusually low against its own 200-day average, negative means unusually high, and zero means it is sitting near it. Every reading carries its own ten-year record, including the instruments where it has worked least well.
- How rare
- Since
- Occasions
Loading the reading.
Consecutive days at the same stretch are one occasion, not many, so we count occasions. Each bar is the month that followed.
What happened from each band
one month later
What we know and do not count
shown, never weighted
The other 35 are in the Terminal
Three instruments are open here in full, with nothing held back. The rest come with their own ten-year record and the all-instrument board.
See what the Terminal includesEverything, on all 38 instruments
Three instruments are open here in full so you can judge the work before paying for it. The Terminal is the same thing without the cutoff.
- All 38 instruments, each with its own ten-year record
- Reading history, so you can see how it got here
- The all-instrument board, sorted by how stretched each one is
- Alerts when an instrument crosses into its top or bottom band
- The full pipeline: retail books, futures positioning, central bank tone, data surprise
The three open instruments stay open. Nothing on this page moves behind the wall.
What you are looking at
One number per instrument, from −100 to +100. It answers a single question: how far has this price run from its own long-run level, compared with every other time it has done so? The sign says which way it has run, and the size says how unusual that is.
It is not a forecast and it is not a signal. It describes where a price sits, and then shows what has actually followed from similar positions before. Those two things are on the page together on purpose, because the second is what makes the first worth reading.
How the number is made
Three steps, and you can check every one against the chart above. Nothing is modelled, nothing is estimated, and no other data enters it.
We built four and published one
Same measure at every horizon, eight years the design never saw, 13,000+ observations per band. This is what separates the best band from the worst at each one:
The two fast ones sat under the spread. A 200-day dislocation unwinds slowly and steadily, so over four hours there is almost none of it to collect. That is the shape of the effect rather than a fault in the measurement, which is why no amount of re-testing rescues them.
The week only half worked. Its top band lifts and the other four are flat. Publishing three readings we had measured as worthless would have made this page look richer and been less use than saying so.
What it is for
Context for a position held over weeks.
- Read the extremesPast ±60 is where the bands separate. Between −20 and +20 the record is flat and it is telling you nothing.
- Read the sign for directionPositive means price sits below its own normal, which has leaned up. Negative is the mirror.
- Read this instrument's own recordThe same number has meant different things on different markets. Gold's baseline is lifted by a decade of drift, and the page says so above its record.
- Treat it as one inputIt knows nothing about today's news, your risk, or your timeframe.
What it will not do
A signed number invites a reading it has not earned.
- Tell you whenA month is the window the record was measured over, not a deadline for anything to happen.
- Tell you how farThe median is the middle of what happened, so half of it was smaller. It is not a target.
- Promise this time matchesA band's record is a base rate over past occasions, and a base rate says nothing about the next one.
- Give you a tradeNo entries, no exits, no stops. Not now and not later.
We measured the short horizons and they did not beat the spread, so we publish no reading for them rather than dress one up. What matters at that speed is what the spread is doing against its normal for this hour, how much the market is actually moving against its own typical range, and how long until the next release. Those are measured separately and none of them is a direction.
This page describes how far a market has moved from its own long-run level, and what has followed similar positions before. It is measured state and a measured record, not a forecast, and nothing here is a trade recommendation.