Growth Momentum
Combines GDP, sector output, retail sales and employment into a measure of growth momentum.
Why it matters: Helps show whether activity is strengthening or weakening across the economy rather than in just one release.
Model Lab: what each model tells you
A directory of the economic questions behind Model Lab. These explanations are available even while live inputs are being checked.
This is a methods directory, not a list of current signals. The dashboard shows a model only when its inputs pass freshness checks. Use the chart’s observation date, formula and historical evidence to interpret a reading.
Choose the right kind of evidence
Descriptive models organise published observations. They can show broadening activity, pressure or divergence, but a high score need not predict what comes next. Scenario tools answer a conditional question using chosen assumptions. Experimental forecasts need historical testing against simple benchmarks, with uncertainty and publication delays taken into account. Do not count models that share inputs as independent votes.
Growth & Activity
Sector Breadth
Shows the share of four broad economic sectors with rising quarterly output.
Why it matters: Growth spread across several sectors is less dependent on a single area of the economy.
GDP Nowcast
Estimates current-quarter GDP growth from available activity and labour-market data, with an uncertainty range.
Why it matters: Provides an early view before official GDP is released; the historical test results show how much confidence the estimate deserves.
Inflation & Prices
Inflation Pressure
Combines consumer prices, wages, gas prices and sterling movements into an inflation-pressure score.
Why it matters: Helps identify whether price pressures are building or easing across several sources.
Inflation Breadth
Measures how many CPI divisions have a higher annual inflation rate than in the previous month.
Why it matters: Shows whether inflation is accelerating broadly or is concentrated in a few categories.
Labour & Households
Labour Market Stress
Combines unemployment, vacancies, claimants, employment and inactivity into a labour-market stress score.
Why it matters: Highlights broad deterioration that a single headline jobs figure may miss.
Household Spending Power
Brings together real wage growth, employment, retail sales and household consumption.
Why it matters: Shows whether household purchasing power and spending momentum are improving or coming under pressure.
Labour Market Tightness
Compares the number of vacancies with the number of unemployed people over matching periods.
Why it matters: More vacancies per jobseeker can indicate recruitment pressure; a falling ratio can signal softer labour demand.
Wage–Productivity Pressure
Tracks annual growth in labour costs per unit of economic output, including non-wage compensation.
Why it matters: When labour costs rise faster than output, businesses may face pressure on margins or prices.
Business Cycle & Recession
Growth–Inflation Cycle
Compares changes in growth momentum and inflation pressure to describe the economy’s current tendency.
Why it matters: Helps distinguish strengthening activity with easing inflation from combinations such as weaker growth and rising price pressure.
10-year minus 2-year Yield Spread
Subtracts the two-year gilt yield from the ten-year yield to measure the slope of the UK yield curve.
Why it matters: An inverted curve can warn of weaker growth expectations, although it does not confirm a recession or reliably time one.
UK Leading Economic Indicator
Tracks the UK composite leading indicator for signs of turning points in activity relative to its long-term trend.
Why it matters: Offers an early view of changes in economic momentum; a fall is not itself proof that GDP is contracting.
Sahm Rule · UK adaptation
Compares the UK unemployment measure with its preceding twelve-month minimum, adapting the Sahm Rule to UK data.
Why it matters: A sustained rise can flag a deteriorating jobs market, but the original US threshold is not a validated UK recession probability.
Rates & Financial Conditions
Financial Conditions
Combines Bank Rate, gilt yields, the yield curve, sterling and equities into a financial-conditions score.
Why it matters: Helps assess whether the market backdrop is becoming more restrictive or supportive for economic activity.
Real Policy Rate
Subtracts observed annual inflation from month-end Bank Rate.
Why it matters: Puts the policy rate in the context of current inflation; it is backward-looking and does not measure expected future real borrowing costs.
Credit Impulse
Measures the annual change in new sterling bank lending to the private sector as a share of nominal GDP.
Why it matters: Shows whether the flow of credit is accelerating or slowing relative to the economy, providing context for spending and investment.
Real Money Growth
Adjusts annual growth in broad M4 money for consumer-price inflation.
Why it matters: Shows whether the purchasing power represented by broad money is expanding or shrinking, without assuming that it predicts asset prices.
Yield-Curve Shape
Compares short-, medium- and long-term gilt yields through two slopes and a curvature measure.
Why it matters: Reveals where the yield curve is changing, adding context that a single ten-year yield cannot provide.
Trade & Sterling
GBP/USD & CoT Positioning
Compares leveraged-fund positioning in British pound futures with GBP/USD price momentum.
Why it matters: Helps identify unusually crowded positioning and disagreement with price trends; positioning extremes alone do not predict reversals.
External Financing Pressure
Expresses the UK current-account deficit as a share of GDP, with a surplus shown as a negative value.
Why it matters: Shows the scale of the economy’s external financing need, rather than the likelihood of a currency or funding crisis.
UK–US Rate Differential
Compares UK and US ten-year government bond yields on matching dates.
Why it matters: Provides context for relative long-term returns and sterling, while recognising that yields alone do not determine exchange rates.
Housing & Mortgages
Mortgage Demand Momentum
Compares the latest three-month average of house-purchase mortgage approvals with the preceding three months.
Why it matters: Helps detect shifts in housing demand before all approved mortgages turn into completed purchases.
Mortgage Affordability
Estimates mortgage repayments as a share of household income using published rates and adjustable household assumptions.
Why it matters: Shows how interest rates affect an illustrative buyer’s payment burden; it is not a measure of every household’s actual affordability.
Public Finances
Debt Interest Burden
Compares central government net interest costs with current receipts over the past twelve months.
Why it matters: A rising share means more revenue is absorbed by interest, leaving less room for other spending or deficit reduction.
Borrowing-to-GDP Trend
Measures trailing-year public-sector borrowing relative to nominal GDP, with deficits shown as positive.
Why it matters: Puts borrowing in the context of the economy’s size and makes the direction of the deficit easier to compare over time.
Debt Dynamics Scenarios
Projects a conditional debt-to-GDP path from chosen assumptions for growth, financing costs and the primary budget balance.
Why it matters: Shows how those assumptions affect debt dynamics; the paths are scenarios to explore, not predictions.
Business Health
Corporate Distress · England & Wales
Tracks the twelve-month company insolvency rate per 10,000 companies on the effective register in England and Wales.
Why it matters: Highlights changes in formal business distress while allowing for changes in the number of registered companies.
Market Valuation
Interest-rate Valuation Comparison
Combines the FTSE 100’s deviation from its price trend with the ten-year gilt yield’s deviation from its historical average.
Why it matters: Places equity prices alongside the interest-rate backdrop; it is a historical comparison, not a reliable estimate of fair value.
FTSE 100 Mean Reversion
Compares the inflation-adjusted FTSE 100 with a fitted long-term exponential trend.
Why it matters: Shows how far prices sit from that historical path, without assuming they must return to it or predicting when they might.
Read the limitations with the result
A standardised Model Chart compares observations with a trend fitted over the selected window. It is not a probability scale. Source revisions and changes to the selected window can change past scores. The model standards explain these limits, and the data guides provide worked examples for GDP, inflation, gilt yields and sterling positioning.