The Board — as of Friday, November 13, 2026
| Gauge | Current | Context |
|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 | 7,561.67 | 52-week range 6,343.72 – 7,818.93 · +2.5% on the week, 3.3% below the high |
| Forward P/E | 19.9× | Rule-of-20 fair multiple: 17.0 (on 3.04% expected inflation); forward EPS $379.60 |
| Equity Risk Premium | −0.08 to +0.13 | Historical norm +3.0 to +4.0 — oscillating around zero as the 10-year whipsawed |
| VIX | 19.30 | Back below 20, out of the 25+ caution zone · 52-week range 13.47 – 31.05 |
| 10-Year Treasury | 4.89% | 2-year 4.55% · 20-year 5.30% · 5.10% midweek, crossing its 65-day average both ways |
| High-Yield Spread | 320bp | Trip line 350bp — retreated from 348bp without firing (#5) |
| Initial Claims | 200,000 | 4-week average 195,250 · trip line ~275K (#3) |
| St. Louis Fed Stress | −0.49 | Trip line 0.00 — fifth week drifting toward it (#4) |
| Brent Crude | $96.08 | Full round trip of the autumn shock; energy inputs normalized |
| Gasoline Crack (refiner’s cut) | $0.21 | 3rd percentile of its 52-week range — refining margin effectively gone (#6) |
| Retail Markup (pump − wholesale) | $1.72 | Highest reading of the 52-week window (median $1.00) — the consumer’s stored pump relief |
| Diesel Crack | $1.90 | 68th percentile — third week below the trip line (#6) |
| Money-Market Pool | $7.980T | −$36B (−0.45%) WoW, released into the rally; 13-week +0.66% (#8) |
| Inflation Expectations | 3.04% | FIRED (#7) — third consecutive rise, decoupled from energy |
| Wilshire 5000 / GDP | 225% | The Buffett gauge: near 200% is “playing with fire” |
Tripwire Status
- #1 Distribution — CLEAR: 2.4% near lows.
- #2 Rotation — CLEAR: 23.8% near highs — the third yearly record in four weeks; Financials broadest at 37% of members.
- #3 Labor — quiet: 200K; 4-week average 195.25K.
- #4 Stress — quiet: −0.49 — fifth consecutive week drifting toward zero; the standing dissent.
- #5 Credit — quiet: retreated 348 → 320bp — the approach to the trigger reversed without firing, confirming the equity rebound.
- #6 Energy pass-through — quiet, both channels: gasoline crack 3rd percentile (refiners tapped out), diesel crack 68th; the retail markup sits at a window-record $1.72 — the pump’s remaining decline now comes from the retailer’s margin, not from crude.
- #7 Expectations — FIRED, strengthening: 3.04%, a third consecutive rise, decoupled from energy and now corroborated by above-consensus CPI and PPI — the board’s one wire, and its most serious.
- #8 Flows — quiet: $36B released into the rally (the benign variant); 13-week change +0.66%.
The Read
- The de-risking reversed, orderly in both directions. Equities rose 2.5% on record breadth led by Financials, high-yield spreads pulled back to 320bp from the edge of the trip line, and the money-market pool released $36B to fund the bid. The system absorbed a shock and refilled risk within a fortnight.
- Inflation expectations decoupled from energy. The 1-year series printed 3.04%, a third consecutive rise, with crude at $96 and refining margins at their lows. The cause has left and the effect is still climbing — and this week’s above-consensus CPI and PPI prints corroborated it.
- Rates whipsawed on the news. Rate futures moved a December Fed hike to near-certainty; the 10-year ran 4.84% → 5.10% → 4.89% in one week, crossing its 65-day average in both directions. The equity risk premium spent the week oscillating around zero — better than October’s −0.4s, far from the +3 to +4 norm.
Commentary
Last week’s question was whether the selloff was rotation or distribution; this week answered it from the other side. Cash that ran to the money-market pool on the way down came back out on the way up, and it went where the breadth was: banks, healthcare, and the industrial core rather than the concentrated mega-cap trade. Financials now carry the broadest participation on the board — 37% of the sector near 52-week highs — and that matters, because banks outperform when credit losses are falling, not ahead of recessions. High-yield spreads retreating in the same week is the confirming vote: bank equities and credit markets saying the same thing. Underneath, the real economy keeps declining every invitation to confirm a slowdown — claims at 200K, both ISMs expanding, energy inputs fully normalized. The growth scare looks like a repricing, not a forecast.
The inflation scare is a different matter. Expectations rising while gasoline rose was explainable; expectations rising after crude, gasoline margins and the diesel premium have all reversed is the signature of decoupling — expectations attaching themselves to the broader price level and feeding through wage demands and pricing behavior. This week the hard data agreed, with CPI and PPI both on the wrong side of consensus. That is the mechanism that caps how constructive anyone should get: every tenth of a point of expected inflation subtracts roughly 40 index points of fair value, and a Fed that hiked in September watching expectations make new highs in November has no case for easing. The board is healing everywhere but the one place that sets the multiple’s ceiling. One wire has fired; it stays the subject until the series turns.
The gasoline pump tells the most practical story on the board. A gallon’s price stacks two margins on crude: the refiner’s cut and the retailer’s markup, and the two are at opposite extremes — the refiner is earning $0.21 a gallon, the 3rd percentile of the past year, while the retailer’s markup of $1.72 is the highest in the window against a $1.00 median. Wholesale gasoline collapsed with crude; pump prices, as always, are falling slower than they rose. That gap is stored consumer relief, and retail competition grinds it out over weeks regardless of what crude does next. Two expectations follow. First, pump prices should keep declining into the holiday season — a direct support to spending power at exactly the right moment. Second, the next ISM Services print may come in softer on price relief rather than activity weakness, as services firms’ energy input costs normalize; a services number that eases for that reason is disinflation, not slowdown, and it would take some pressure off the one series still firing — inflation expectations. Watch the retail markup’s percentile: when it starts falling from the top of its range, that is the relief actually reaching the consumer.