US macro dashboard: 92 indicators across eight themes, then the hard data, the surveys and the household ledger

The wide shot — roughly ninety FRED series organized into growth, labor, inflation, housing, consumer, money, rates and sentiment, each with its latest reading, momentum and sparkline, plus the Treasury curve and the 2s10s spread with recessions shaded. Below it, three deep dives: the hard data GDPNow runs on (retail sales nominal and real, industrial production, durable-goods orders, starts, permits, new-home sales), the soft data that turns first (the Chicago Fed National Activity Index and the Empire State, Philadelphia and Dallas Fed surveys — the free stand-ins for the ISM PMI), and the household ledger (real disposable income, the personal saving rate, real consumer spending).

Live readings

• GDPNow: 3.64% (Q3 2026, +0.17 pts vs a year ago)
• Unemployment: 4.2% (2026-09-01, −0.20 pts vs a year ago)
• Financial conditions: -0.5 (2026-10-09, +0.02 pts vs a year ago)
• Consumer sentiment: 51.7 (2026-08-01, -11.2% YoY)
• Retail sales (advance): $745,021 million (2026-09-01, +6.3% YoY)
• Industrial production index: 104 (2026-09-01, +2.2% YoY)
• Durable goods orders: $338,458 million (2026-08-01, +8.4% YoY)
• Chicago Fed activity index: -0.04 (2026-08-01, +0.32 pts vs a year ago)
• Empire State index: 25.5 (2026-10-01, +17.70 pts vs a year ago)
• Philadelphia Fed index: 20.9 (2026-10-01, +31.00 pts vs a year ago)
• Real disposable personal income: $18,411 billion (2026-08-01, +1.3% YoY)
• Personal saving rate: 4.1% (2026-08-01, −1.10 pts vs a year ago)

Hot activity plus hot prices is demand-driven inflation the Fed fights; cooling activity with sticky prices is the stagflation corner. When the hard data and the surveys disagree, the hard data usually wins; a falling saving rate with flat real income is a consumer running on borrowed cushion. Every tile links to a deeper page — the gauge for inflation, jobs, the housing hub, money and liquidity — and every series is in the open directory with full history and CSV downloads. This dashboard is the index; the specialty pages are the chapters.

What this page measures

The wide shot: 92 FRED series arranged in 8 themes, as pulled October 17, 2026. Each tile carries the latest reading, the change from the prior observation and a sparkline; the tables below list every series so the page reads without the charts. Rates and growth series are levels; series marked YoY are year-over-year percentage changes, which strip out seasonality and put a retail-sales dollar figure and a production index on the same footing.

Rates & Credit

Labor

Inflation Internals

Housing

Consumer

Industrial

Growth & Recession

Liquidity & Conditions

The Treasury curve, October 15, 2026

1M 4.17%, 3M 4.28%, 6M 4.35%, 1Y 4.49%, 2Y 4.77%, 3Y 4.85%, 5Y 4.91%, 7Y 5%, 10Y 5.1%, 20Y 5.48%, 30Y 5.43%. The 10-year minus 2-year spread is +0.33pp (TRANSITIONAL / MIXED); an inverted curve — short yields above long — has preceded every modern recession, and the re-steepening after inversion has usually been the recession itself.

How to read the dashboard

Hard data first: retail sales, industrial production, durable-goods orders, starts and permits are measured activity and the raw inputs of the GDP nowcast; a slowdown shows there before it reaches headline GDP. The surveys — the Chicago Fed activity index (zero is trend growth, below −0.70 flags recession) and the Empire State, Philadelphia and Dallas Fed manufacturing indexes (centered on zero) — turn earlier, at the cost of false alarms; when they disagree with the hard data, the hard data usually wins. Income and savings say whether spending is sustainable: real disposable income growing means households can spend without borrowing; a falling saving rate with flat real income is a consumer running on borrowed cushion. Set against the inflation side — the Gauge at 3.45% and official CPI at 3.7% for September 2026 — hot activity with hot prices is demand-driven inflation the Fed leans against; cooling activity with sticky prices is the stagflation corner. Every tile links to a deeper page (the gauge for inflation, jobs, housing, money and liquidity, recession risk) and every series is in the open directory with full history and CSV downloads.

Terms on this page

Diffusion index

A survey statistic equal to the share of respondents reporting an increase minus the share reporting a decrease; zero means as many expanding as contracting.

Hard vs soft data

Hard data is measured activity (sales, output, starts); soft data is surveys and sentiment. Surveys move first; hard data settles the argument.

Year-over-year (YoY)

The percentage change from the same period a year earlier, which removes seasonal patterns without a statistical adjustment.

Basis point

One hundredth of a percentage point; yield and spread moves are quoted in basis points.

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