The stock market indicators I actually look at every week and the ones I finally cut from my workflow
u/No_Use_5244 ·
Reddit — r/stocks
· March 06, 2026 at 05:40
· ⬆ 28 pts
· 💬 26 comments
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I trimmed my weekly indicator list down hard this year and my decision making got way better almost immediately. Too many people (myself included for a long time) have these massive watchlists of stock market indicators and never actually act on any of them because the signals conflict with each other.
What survived the cut:
FRED yield curve data, specifically 10Y minus 2Y and 10Y minus 3M. Slow mover but when it flips it matters. I pull it straight from the St. Louis Fed site every Monday.
AAII Sentiment Survey. Bearish readings above 50% have been a solid contrarian signal over time. Not on its own, but combined with other stuff it adds context.
Put/call ratio on CBOE (equity only, not total). Spikes above 0.9 get my attention.
VIX term structure, not the VIX level itself but the curve shape. Contango vs backwardation. Backwardation = real stress, not just headline fear.
ISM Manufacturing PMI, especially the employment sub index. Below 50 tends to front run economic slowdowns.
What got dropped: RSI on indices (too noisy on daily), CNN Fear and Greed Index (just a mashup of things I already track individually and it lags all of them), and daily MACD on SPX (false crossovers constantly during choppy months).
I also check MarketModel for a consolidated macro signal most weeks. Saves time on Sunday prep since they aggregate a lot of this into one daily read.
Fewer indicators checked consistently > a dashboard of 30 things you only look at when you're already nervous.