Each dot is one month’s headline score; the coloured bands are the four zones. A hollow dot means the year-ago comparison wasn’t available yet for that month, so only the recent-months lens is shown. The dashed grey line is the same calendar month one year earlier, so you can see at a glance whether this year is running above or below last year. Those earlier months only have the recent-months lens available; the hollow grey points also had a shorter run-up of data behind them, so read them a little loosely. Hover any month to see both years’ values. Move your cursor anywhere across the chart to read a value and see what drove that month. Click to pin, or use the ← → keys.

The index rises when two things happen at once: people search more for cheap necessities, and less for things they can put off. Both columns are warning signs — these are the biggest movers, vs the same month last year.

Every subcategory, vs the same month last year. Hover any row for what it covers and why it matters. Bars run right when a category is being searched more than a year ago and left when it’s being searched less. Neither direction is good or bad on its own — for staples, “more” is the warning; for big-ticket items, “less” is.

All 101 items, ranked each month within our index of economic indicators (1 = strongest). The ranking is ours — Amazon search behaviour helps power the analysis, but the way items are weighted and placed is proprietary. Hover any row for why it’s tracked. Items tagged staple or big-ticket are the ones that feed the headline score — the tag says what kind of item it is, not which way it’s moving.