Why Swoopr Is Building This
A market can trend while only a few indicators confirm it. High-conviction moves involve agreement across price, breadth, credit, rates and other independent signal families. The Signal Conviction Index makes that agreement measurable without requiring the user to reconcile many separate indicators manually.
Swoopr already publishes market tools, a live proprietary Fear and Greed gauge, a sentiment dashboard, macro and regime education, portfolio diagnostics and a market-history library. This product makes one missing question measurable, explainable and reusable across the site.
What It Measures
The model draws from the following evidence families:
- Price trend
- Breadth confirmation
- Credit confirmation
- Volatility confirmation
- Rates and bond confirmation
- Currency confirmation
- Sentiment confirmation
- Cross-asset confirmation
Scoring Methodology
Each component is normalized to a 0-100 historical percentile score. For a raw value x:
component_score = percentile_rank(x within approved history) * 100
Where a higher raw value represents worse conditions, the score is inverted:
adjusted_score = 100 - component_score
The composite is:
composite = sum(weight_i * adjusted_score_i) / sum(active_weight_i)
Interpretation Bands
| Score range | Label |
|---|---|
| 0-24 | Very low agreement |
| 25-39 | Low agreement |
| 40-59 | Mixed evidence |
| 60-74 | Strong agreement |
| 75-100 | Broad agreement |
Bands are communication aids, not natural laws. The reading always shows the numeric value, trend and component contributions.
FAQ
Is Swoopr Signal Conviction Index a buy or sell signal?
No. It describes whether independent evidence families agree with the current market direction. High conviction can accompany any direction. It is not a prediction or recommendation.
What does low conviction mean?
Low conviction means fewer independent signal families confirm the market direction. It does not mean a reversal is imminent. Low conviction has persisted across both continuing trends and turning points in historical data.
What happens when data are missing?
The affected component is excluded under a predefined rule, coverage falls, and the product shows this to the user. Missing data are not converted to a neutral score.
How is this different from Fear and Greed?
Fear and Greed measures sentiment. Signal Conviction measures cross-family agreement with market direction. They may agree or diverge and are cross-linked rather than merged.
How many signal families does the score require to be meaningful?
Coverage is always published alongside the score. The score is not silently rescaled when families are missing. When fewer than the full set are active, the reading shows partial coverage and the user can see which families are missing.
Methodology Version and Source Provenance
Current Version
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Version | v1.0 |
| Effective date | 2026-09-30 |
| Methodology policy | Swoopr Investment: Data & Methodology Policy |
Change Log
| Version | Date | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| v1.0 | 2026-09-30 | Initial published version. Scoring logic, normalization standard, component weights and missing-data rules documented for the first time. |
Source Series and Provenance
The table below lists the primary input series used in this score. Swoopr does not redistribute or relicense third-party data. Source data is retrieved for internal computation only; third-party terms apply to any direct use of those series.
| Component | Primary source | Series / method | Data type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Volatility regime | Cboe | VIX level vs historical distribution | Implied volatility |
| Financial conditions | Chicago Fed / FRED | NFCI and component sub-indices | Financial conditions |
| Credit spread regime | ICE BofA / FRED | BAMLH0A0HYM2 level and trend | Credit spreads |
| Breadth and trend agreement | NYSE / S&P Dow Jones Indices / composite | Cross-confirmation of A/D trend, sector breadth and index price trend | Breadth/trend |
| Sentiment alignment | Swoopr | Derived from Fear and Greed and Market State outputs | Sentiment |
Limitations
Conviction scores measure agreement among observable signals, not probability of return outcome. High-conviction readings in either direction can be followed by continued moves or abrupt reversals.
All scores are for education and general information only. They do not constitute personalized investment advice. See the Financial Disclaimer and Data & Methodology Policy for full terms.
References
- Cboe: VIX Volatility Products
- FRED: Chicago Fed National Financial Conditions Index (NFCI)
- FRED: ICE BofA U.S. High Yield OAS (BAMLH0A0HYM2)
- S&P Dow Jones Indices: S&P U.S. Indices Methodology
- Swoopr Investment: Sentiment Dashboard
- Swoopr Investment: Market Regime Classifier
- Swoopr Investment: Evidence and Validation
Disclaimer
This score is educational market context only. It is not investment advice, a forecast, or a promise of future returns. Data can be delayed, revised or incomplete. Swoopr publishes the observation timestamp and methodology version with every live reading.