About us and how Crisis Monitor works

What is Crisis Monitor?

A free educational dashboard that tracks 17 public indicators of the US economy and markets and summarizes them in a number from 0 to 100. Its goal is for anyone to understand, without jargon, whether economic stress is rising and what happened in past crises.

Who is behind it?

Crisis Monitor is an independent editorial project. The content is built from public sources and the methodology is published so anyone can check how each figure is calculated.

You can write to us at hola@globalcrisismonitors.com to report an error, suggest an improvement or ask about the methodology.

Where does the data come from?

• FRED, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis database: credit spreads, yield curve, financial stress, unemployment, production, sales and confidence.
• Yahoo Finance: VIX, the dollar index, gold and copper.
• NBER: official dates of US recessions.

Each indicator links to its original source on its page. We do not modify the data: we only transform it (for example, into a year-over-year change) and score it.

How often is it updated?

Market data refreshes every 15 minutes and FRED data every 6 hours, although many official indicators are published only once a week or once a month. The weekly history since 1990, which we use to analyze past crises, is regenerated every month. If a source fails, we show the last known data point marked as out of date: we never make up values.

How is the index calculated?

Each data point gets a score from 0 to 100 based on fixed bands. The scores are grouped into five areas with different weights (credit 30%, interest rates and cycle 20%, jobs 20%, markets 15% and output and spending 15%), and an extra is added if several areas are stressed at the same time. The weights and thresholds were set before checking the results against past crises and have not been adjusted after the fact. The full detail is in the methodology.

What is Crisis Monitor not?

It is not financial advice or an investment recommendation, and it does not predict the future. It is a tool for staying informed. Before making decisions with your money, speak to a firm or adviser authorized by the financial regulator in your country.

How is it funded?

The site is free. We may show advertising and affiliate links, always marked “Sponsored”. There is never sponsored content in the risk number, the alarms or the analyses, and no advertiser influences the data.