Bespoke's Torture Index

A few months ago, we created the Bespoke Torture Index for our Premium members.  This index combines the recent performance of a number of assets and combines them to show how much pain US individuals are going through.  The index takes into account the one-year performance of stocks, the dollar, oil, gold and commodity prices.  For oil, gold and commodities, we use the inverse of the one-year performance, so when they are going up in price, they are going down in our Torture Index.  We then average all of these one-year performances to get the final Torture Index number.  The lower the number, the more pain we're in.

All five inputs going down is the worst possible scenario, and this has indeed happened over the last year or so.  As of Friday's close, the Torture Index was at -41.37, which is the most extreme it has been since early 1980.  But how low can we go?  The worst the Torture Index has ever been was -64.75 back in early 1974. 

To view the Torture Index on a regular basis, become a Bespoke Premium member today.

Comments

[anonymous]

Semantics really, but wouldn't a positive number in a torture index be more appropriate for a torturous time?