Today ·
Today’s market reading
A plain English read of how confident or cautious markets are, worked out every day.
Where the market sits today
Tap each tile to see what it measures and why it matters.
“Agrees” means a reading points the same way as most of the others. It describes today, not tomorrow.
Look closer Which parts of the market moved, and the crypto mood
Where the market moved
The eleven parts of the US market, and which way each went at the last US close.
The crypto mood
A daily score from 0 to 100 of how fearful or greedy crypto traders are, published by Alternative.me. It makes up three tenths of the crypto reading.
The five largest coins
Ranked by total value alone, never chosen by us. Prices in US dollars. Data provided by CoinGecko.
Market confidence, last two weeks
Each bar is one market day’s overall reading, from very cautious to very confident. Taller means more confident. Markets are closed at weekends, so there are no bars for Saturday or Sunday. Each day is added the following afternoon, once its closing figures are in.
The Jacqueline Read
This week’s Read is on its way and will appear here in a moment.
How this is worked out The method, the weights and where the numbers come from
How this is worked out
Six readings are taken every day and combined into one position on the scale above. They do not count equally. Crypto carries the most weight because this is a crypto-led read, and gold is left out entirely on the days it moves the same way as the dollar, because that makes the reason for its move unclear.
The piece and the recording, in your inbox every Sunday morning.
One email on a Sunday. Nothing else, and no offers.
Take 2 mins to learn more The risks the FCA wants you to know about before investing in cryptoassets
1. You could lose all the money you invest
Prices can fall as fast as they rise, and the market is largely unregulated, so money can also be lost to cyber-attacks, crime, or a firm failing.
2. You should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme does not cover this, and the Financial Ombudsman Service cannot look at most complaints about it.
3. You may not be able to sell when you want to
There is no guarantee a buyer is there when you want one, and outages or firm failures can hold a sale up.
4. Cryptoasset investments can be complex
They are hard to understand, which makes the risks hard to judge. Do your own research first.
5. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
Spreading money across different investments makes you less dependent on any one of them. A common rule of thumb is to keep high-risk investments under 10% of your money.
These five headings are the Financial Conduct Authority’s, from its prescribed risk summary for qualifying cryptoassets. The explanations are ours, in plain English. The authoritative version is COBS 4 Annex 1R.
What the market is telling us
- Where the money went
- Against the past week
- Worth noticing
Written automatically from today’s readings. It describes what has happened, not what comes next.
The wider picture
What else moved, beyond the six readings. None of this counts towards the score.
What the US government pays to borrow. When these rise, borrowing tends to get dearer across the economy.
At the last US close, read through funds that track each one.
Every coin together, not just the five largest.
