WarrenCo

The Pendulum.

Howard Marks's metaphor, made literal. Two independent gauges of risk appetite (VIX since 1990; Shiller Excess CAPE Yield since 1970) each ranked against their own full history, then averaged into a single fear-to-greed reading. Four anchor moments mark where the pendulum sat in past regimes. Today's reading is in the greed band but well off the dot-com extreme.

extreme fearfearnormalgreedextreme greedFEARGREEDMar 2000 (dot-com peak)Oct 2007 (pre-GFC)Mar 2020 (COVID panic)Oct 2022 (rates panic)69pendulum reading today

Pendulum sits in the greed band. Not euphoria, but investors are paying for comfort. Maintain discipline; do not chase.

GaugeTodayGreed score2000200720202022
VIX17.19522246116
ECY1.39%8599762866
Each gauge's "greed score" is its current value percentile-ranked within its full available history, then flipped so that low VIX (defensive demand cheap) and low ECY (equity premium thin) both read as greed. The pendulum reading is the simple mean of those greed scores. Anchor dates marked along the outer arc are picked by hindsight (dot-com peak, pre-GFC top, COVID panic, 2022 rates panic); their pendulum reading is computed identically from the data at that month. This is a positioning dashboard, not a timing signal. Marks's point: the pendulum tells you where you stand, not when it will swing.

Sources: FRED daily for VIXCLS, cached 6h; ECY from lii/data/ecy_60yr.json. The page intentionally uses only the two gauges with verifiable full-history percentile data; credit-spread series from FRED truncate at ~3 years for ICE BofA OAS, so they appear on the Animal Spirits page (with explicit anchor values) rather than as a percentile-ranked gauge here. Pendulum reading today: 69 / 100.