Sentiment Boxes to Check: Market Condition Metrics

Tracking markets means facing a massive barrage of earnings, data, central bank rate changes, geopolitical swings, and technical trends. They all seem to demand attention and often point in different directions, creating a perpetual crosswind with limited chance to stand back and check the scenery.

To understand broader climate patterns rather than just hourly temperatures, consider watching a few market metrics that don't necessarily show up in the media each day. These can point to longer-term patterns that help shape the market, as well as possible changes afoot that might otherwise go unnoticed.

None of these somewhat "soft" data metrics replace earnings, technical levels, and rate policy when it comes to market impact and importance. Nor are they a substitute for other "soft" metrics like consumer sentiment, which gauge the opinions of the average person rather than those of traders. Still, they can sometimes help investors feel grounded by providing a big-picture look at a market where tiny details shape each minute of trading.

Some of these aren't Schwab tools. That doesn't mean they're not potentially valuable for investors who use Schwab's platforms, only that they're not necessarily tracked by Schwab, and may require going outside Schwab or the thinkorswim^® platform to find. The indicators mentioned below don't need subscriptions to get an overall reading, though they might require a subscription for deeper dives.

More than a decade ago, CNN Business developed this tool to measure how much these two basic human emotions are shaping the market. The index goes from zero to 100, with zero indicating extreme fear and 100 showing extreme greed. The index reflects several different measurements, including the 125-day moving average of the S&P 500^® Index (SPX), the number of stocks making 52-week highs versus 52-week lows, market breadth, the put/call ratio, volatility, demand for so-called "safe-haven" assets like bonds, and demand for less safe assets like junk bonds. This tends to be a volatile index, for instance, swinging from extreme fear levels below 10 in late March 2026, amid the Iran war, to greed at 71 by early May 2026, as chip stocks mounted a historic rally. When the index is somewhere in the middle, it may be less helpful. When it's at one extreme or another, it can often mean the market is about to move up or down. But there's no guarantee.

Every week, the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) surveys investors for their thoughts on where the market is headed over the next six months. It's a simple measurement of how many are bullish and how many are bearish. Historically, the average readings are 37.5% bullish, 31% bearish, and 31.5% neutral. Again, investors might want to note any large swings away from those averages, though no single week constitutes a trend. It's more helpful to monitor trends over time, which AAII makes easy to do on its website by listing the last four weeks of results plus one-year highs and lows in bearish and bullish sentiment. Like the Fear & Greed Index, a trend toward more bearish or less greedy sentiment can sometimes indicate an upward move ahead in the market, and vice versa.

Like the American Association of Individual Investors survey, Schwab offers its own version of investor sentiment data known as the Schwab Trading Activity Index, or STAX. This monthly measure can offer a useful lens on how individuals are responding to market conditions because it is grounded in actual behavior rather than opinion alone. STAX analyzes aggregated Schwab client account activity over the past 30 days, including holdings, positions, trading behavior, and other portfolio signals. By reflecting how Schwab clients are positioned, it can help investors better understand shifts in risk appetite and place short-term market moves in broader context. Like any sentiment measure, STAX is most useful when viewed over time and alongside other market indicators, fundamental data, and opinion-based research. "A rising STAX score may suggest retail investors are becoming more bullish, while a declining score may point to a more cautious tone or simply less bullish positioning than in the prior month," said Joe Mazzola, head trading and derivatives strategist at Schwab.

Following the market means digesting a fresh dose of economic data daily. Even when U.S. data is light, numbers from abroad can affect the markets. It's often hard to get a sense from the trenches of how it all adds up over time. And while reports like U.S. nonfarm payrolls get an incredible amount of attention, many others go relatively unnoticed.

That's where the Citigroup Economic Surprise Index comes in. It tracks each report and uses Bloomberg data to determine how far the numbers deviated from consensus forecasts by economists across major economic regions. The chart shows the monthly change in surprises (positive or negative) for the United States, the Asia-Pacific region, the Group of 10 (G10) industrialized countries, and Europe. Arrows up and down on the chart make it easy for investors to see monthly trends for each region. Upward means the data generally surpassed analysts' expectations, and downward means the opposite. This can be a helpful tool for those unable to remember what they had for breakfast, let alone what last month's U.S. construction spending might have been.

This one might not be worth much in the long run, but it became a popular indicator in 2026 as conflict in the Middle East intensified. The conflict caused shipping traffic to halt in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passageway that is a transit point for roughly 20% of the world's crude oil. The Hormuz Strait Monitor tracks how many ships moved through the strait each day versus the historic average, as well as whether the passage is open or closed. It also tells investors how many vessels are waiting to go in and out of the strait. Another thing it tracks is war-risk insurance, meaning how much shipping firms need to pay above normal for insurance based on danger levels in the strait. The importance of this metric depends to some degree on the price of oil and on how much the oil market is currently affecting stock and bond trading. Generally, when oil rises, the volume of ships grows more important for the world economy.

After becoming familiar with some of the metrics above, investors may want to drill down into additional daily temperature and humidity readings. There's a way to do that on Schwab's thinkorswim platform called Trade Flash, available in the left sidebar. It streams all kinds of information about what large traders are doing—those whose volume can sometimes move markets. Trade Flash also streams real-time intraday commentary from a network of more than 500 professional traders.