Most pages on The Tea Leaves measure things you can act on — what to wear outside, when to buy groceries, how the grid is doing. This one measures how things feel. The dials below track sentiment, behavior, and business mood: softer signals that tend to lead the harder data by months. They're slow-moving and inherently fuzzy. Read them as weather, not deadlines.
Macro Mood Score
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/ 100
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A weighted blend of six FRED indicators, sign-corrected and z-scored against 10 years of history. 50 = historically normal.
Households
Behavior
Business