Methodology / Macro

Macro: the backdrop, and the same number for everyone

Macro is the one factor that is not about the ticker. It reads a single market-wide regime classification produced upstream in Tapeline's scoring pipeline and maps it to a value. On any given tick that value is identical for every ticker on the board.

One of the six factors in the Tapeline composite. One of three mid-weighted factors, alongside Fundamentals and Smart Money. Tapeline publishes the ordering of the factor weights, not the numeric weights or the scoring equation.

What it measures

Observable quantities, nothing else

• ·The prevailing market-regime classification, expressed as a small set of named states rather than as a continuous number.
• ·Nothing about the individual ticker. No price, no filing, no company data enters this factor.

How the reading is derived

The same procedure on every ticker

1. 01The incoming classification is normalised and resolved into one of three broad families — a rising or positive family, a sideways or neutral family, and a falling or negative family — and each resolved state maps to a fixed value on the 0–100 scale.
2. 02Because the upstream classification arrives as free text rather than as an enumerated code, the resolution is tolerant of phrasing. Negative wording is checked before positive wording, so a phrase that negates a positive term resolves to the negative reading rather than matching the positive term inside it.
3. 03The resulting value is applied identically to every scored ticker on that tick.
4. 04If no classification arrives, or the wording is one Tapeline does not recognise, the factor is treated as unavailable for that tick and the composite substitutes a mid-range value — the same handling every other factor gets when its data is missing.

Tapeline deliberately does not publish the numeric weights, the scoring equation, or the exact band edges used to map a measurement onto the 0–100 scale. What is published is the factor set, the weight ordering, each factor’s contribution on every ticker, and the record of every daily top-10.

What feeds it

Data behind this factor

Every category, its refresh cadence and where it appears in the product is listed on data sources.

Known limitations

Where this factor is weak

Every one of these is a property of the method, not a bug waiting to be fixed. They are listed here so a reader can decide how much weight to give the reading.

• —A regime label is a discrete bucket imposed on a continuous world. The reading steps when a classification changes, which can happen on a small underlying move.
• —Regimes are identified once they are already under way. There is no forecast of a regime change here, and none is implied.
• —Because the value is common to every ticker, it compresses the spread between tickers rather than separating them. It contributes to the level of the whole board more than to its ordering.
• —Handling an unrecognised classification as missing data is deliberately quiet. It keeps scoring running rather than failing the tick, but it means an upstream wording change shows up as an unremarkable mid-range reading instead of as a visible error.
• —Resolving free text by matching wording is inherently approximate. It is tolerant by design, and tolerance is not the same as correctness.
• —The underlying macro series that inform any regime view are published on a lag and are revised after publication.
• —Tapeline separately publishes a live macro dashboard on the market-regime page. Read that as a descriptive view of current conditions; it is presented on its own terms and is not a restatement of this factor's input.

Limits that apply to the whole product, rather than to this factor, are on limitations.

Common questions

Macro FAQ

The other five

Each factor has its own page

Back to the full methodology overview, or read why Tapeline publishes its losing days.