Stock Market
Crash Indicator.
Twenty-six market and macro indicators historically associated with equity drawdowns: stretched valuations, credit stress, margin debt, draining liquidity, yield-curve inversion, thin market breadth, the Sahm Rule, jobless claims, financial stress indexes, and more. Every number below is a real, freely-sourced series (FRED, FINRA, Robert Shiller's data, Twelve Data, or computed from this site's own tracked universe), refreshed weekly, and the track-record table shows how each warning rule actually behaved before past recessions. Deliberately no single "crash score": combining 26 unrelated indicators into one number would mean inventing weights for how much each matters, which is exactly the kind of synthetic scoring this site avoids everywhere else.
On Oct 23, 2026, the Shiller CAPE is 40.6, against a long-run median of 16.1 and a peak of 44.2 in December 1999. The Buffett indicator is 217% of GDP, the VIX 16.7 and the 10-year minus 2-year Treasury spread 0.31 points.
Where all 26 of these come from, and what's still missing
This page started from a 16-indicator wishlist across valuation, credit, market-structure, and macro categories. Every one was checked directly against this site's free data sources before anything was built, and later passes went looking for more. Of the original 16: 15 are now real and shown below (11 as the literal named metric, 4 as an honestly-labeled free proxy, tagged “proxy” on their card), and 1 is still genuinely unavailable for free: the CBOE SKEW Index. It is proprietary CBOE data, FRED doesn't carry it, and CBOE's own download refuses automated requests. (CBOE's VVIX, a plausible substitute, isn't free anywhere either.)
Two of the original items were wrongly written off at first. Shiller CAPE and FINRA margin debt aren't on the three data APIs this site started from (FRED, Twelve Data, Finnhub), so an early pass called them unavailable. Both are in fact freely published: Robert Shiller's monthly data (read here through multpl.com) and a workbook FINRA links on its own margin-statistics page, with history back to 1871 and 1997. Consumer credit growth, which stood in for margin debt until now, stays on the page as its own household-leverage reading.
Two more were reclassified after checking the actual data instead of assuming. Forward P/E (broad market) was first marked unavailable, then it turned out Finnhub's per-stock data (already fetched weekly for other tools on this site) includes a real analyst-estimate forward P/E field nobody had read yet; this page now shows the real, market-cap-weighted average across the tracked universe, at zero extra API cost. ISM Manufacturing PMI sat marked unavailable too (ISM stopped free redistribution of the national number years ago) until a later pass found the Philadelphia Fed's own regional manufacturing survey: a real, live, free series economists already treat as an early read ahead of the national ISM report each month, not an invented stand-in.
The three other proxies: the Buffett Indicator shows this site's own tracked universe's real summed market cap divided by GDP (the exact ticker count is shown live on that card), not the full Wilshire-5000 total-market figure (discontinued from free public data by FRED in 2021), a large majority of total US market cap, but not literally all of it. The Leading Economic Index uses the Chicago Fed's own National Activity Index (CFNAI-MA3) instead of the Conference Board's paywalled LEI, a different, real, live composite with its own well-known -0.70 recession threshold. The Copper/Gold Ratio uses the CPER/GLD ETF ratio, the standard practical substitute for spot commodity prices that aren't on this site's data tier. A fourth, Recession Odds, pairs the published Chauvet–Piger probability with a one-variable yield-curve model this site fits itself, because the New York Fed's own coefficients couldn't be confirmed.
The remaining 11 cards weren't on the original wishlist: found across later passes and added because they're real, free, live, and genuinely relevant: the St. Louis Fed Financial Stress Index and the Chicago Fed Financial Conditions Index (two independently-built systemic-stress gauges), Initial Jobless Claims, the investment-grade credit spread, corporate profits growth, University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment, consumer credit growth, the equity risk premium (stocks against Treasurys, shown without a status because negative readings were normal for decades), M2 money growth alongside the Fed's balance sheet and reverse-repo facility, and the S&P 500's own trend against its 200-day average.
Is the market priced for perfection?
These gauges read the whole market at once. A market can look stretched because of one corner of it: the Sector Valuation Map shows which sectors the stretch sits in, and how a bubble can build in one sector and not in all.
Is credit stress building, or liquidity draining?
What's happening under the surface?
What does the real economy say?
Which Minsky stage are markets in, and is a recession signalled?
Economist Hyman Minsky argued that stability breeds risk-taking: finance drifts from hedge (income covers debt) to speculative to Ponzi-style (prices and new borrowing keep it going) until a shock causes a Minsky moment, a sudden collapse. There is no official gauge, so this reads five fragility signals and three triggers from the numbers above, with every threshold shown. It describes how fragile conditions are, not when a crash comes.
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How does today compare with the 2000 and 2007 market peaks?
Seven measures, read in March 2000 and October 2007, the two bubble peaks, against the latest month. The table says only whether today is more or less stretched than both peaks; it does not say a crash is coming.
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What are Japan, the euro area, the UK, Taiwan and South Korea signalling?
Each market gets the same short checklist: bond and currency stress where the data exists, and three equity readings from a US-listed country ETF. Hover a row for its rule. A status compares one number with a stated threshold; it is not a forecast.
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How fast are population and consumer spending growing, and is it speeding up?
Consumer spending is about two thirds of the US economy. Speed is the year-on-year growth rate; acceleration is how much that rate changed against a year earlier. Switch between the USA and the EU.
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So where does that leave things?
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Generated directly from the 26 US indicator cards (Valuation, Credit, Market Structure and Macro), refreshed the same time they are - never a separate opinion, and never a combined score. The bubble comparison, country panels and growth chart are separate views and are not counted here. If conditions look stretched, the screener's Margin of Safety Explorer and Value Traps list are a reasonable next stop.
How well have these actually worked?
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What would a portfolio have done in these crashes? Replay today's picks through the dot-com bust, the 2008 crisis, COVID and 2022 →
Educational content only, not investment advice. Every indicator here has, at various points in history, given a false signal: an inverted yield curve or an elevated credit spread does not mean a crash is imminent, and their absence doesn't mean one can't happen. This page describes real, current data; it does not predict anything. Always do your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions. See Editorial Standards and Disclosures for more.
What are the stock market crash indicators reading right now?
On Oct 23, 2026, the Shiller CAPE is 40.6, against a long-run median of 16.1 and a peak of 44.2 in December 1999. The Buffett indicator is 217% of GDP, the VIX 16.7 and the 10-year minus 2-year Treasury spread 0.31 points. The S&P 500 is 6.5% above its 200-day average and 0.8% off its high.
| Indicator | Latest | Compared with | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shiller CAPE | 40.6 | median 16.1; higher than 99% of months since 1871 | Oct 22, 2026 |
| Buffett indicator (market value to GDP) | 217% | tracked market value $70.8 trillion | Oct 23, 2026 |
| Forward P/E of tracked stocks | 23.7 | 495 stocks | Oct 23, 2026 |
| Equity risk premium | -1.31 points | earnings yield 3.82% minus 10-year Treasury 5.13% | Oct 22, 2026 |
| VIX | 16.7 | volatility index | Oct 21, 2026 |
| 10-year minus 2-year Treasury spread | 0.31 points | below zero means an inverted yield curve | Oct 22, 2026 |
| High-yield credit spread | 3.27% | extra yield over Treasuries on junk bonds | Oct 21, 2026 |
| Sahm rule (unemployment-rate gap) | 0.00 points | a gap of 0.50 or more has meant the US was already in a recession; it confirms a downturn, it does not predict one | Sep 1, 2026 |
| Market breadth | 56.4% | 285 of 505 tracked stocks above their 200-day average | Oct 23, 2026 |
| S&P 500 against its 200-day average | +6.5% | 0.8% below its high of 7,819 on Oct 6, 2026 | Oct 21, 2026 |
| Margin debt | $1.48 trillion | +31.4% on the year; record $1.50 trillion in June 2026 | Sep 1, 2026 |
| Initial jobless claims | 194,000 | claims in the latest week | Oct 17, 2026 |
The tool above shows all 26 indicators with their history, and how each behaved before every US recession since 1969. There is no composite score: you see each reading. See CAPE, the Buffett indicator and the Sahm rule in the glossary.
Data from FRED (St. Louis Fed), Shiller's data via multpl.com and this site's own tracked stocks. Educational content only, not investment advice; indicators describe conditions, they do not time a crash.
Frequently asked questions
Can an indicator predict a stock market crash?
No. These 26 indicators describe conditions that have preceded past drawdowns; the track-record table shows how often each one warned before a US recession since 1969 and how often it gave false alarms. None of them times a crash.
What is the Sahm rule?
A recession signal from the unemployment rate: it compares the 3-month average with its lowest point of the past 12 months. When the gap reaches 0.50 percentage points the US has historically already been in a recession, so it confirms a downturn rather than predicting one.
Why is there no single score?
A combined score would hide which readings drive it and invent a precision the data does not have. The page shows each reading, its threshold and its history, and a plain tally of how many are at a warning level.
About this stock market crash indicator
The stock market crash indicator tracks 26 free, public indicators tied to equity drawdowns, including valuation (the CAPE ratio and the Buffett indicator), the yield curve, credit spreads, market breadth, volatility and sentiment, and shows how each would have behaved before every US recession since 1969. There is no single composite score: you see each reading and its history. Pair it with the sector valuation map to see where a market bubble could be building. Rates and money supply on both sides of the Atlantic are on the dollar vs euro comparison, every indicator is defined in the glossary, and the Portfolio Doctor shows how your own holdings would have fared in past crashes. The method is written down: how the minsky stage is computed. The rules and the replay are explained in how the Crash Indicator works. Related guides: is the stock market in a bubble, the Buffett Indicator, the yield curve and recessions and the Minsky moment.