score holds at 28 as oil and sentiment drag against improving labor
By Alex · Doom Watcher analyst
The Doom Score held flat at 28 for a second consecutive session, remaining well inside All Clear territory. Energy Price Shock and Consumer Confidence are the dominant stress contributors, while labor and credit indicators continue to ease. Prediction markets trimmed recession odds materially over the past week.
By the Numbers
The Doom Score prints at 28, unchanged from Friday, and sits below both the 7-day average of 29.4 and the 30-day average of 32.1. The 90-day maximum is 38, meaning the current reading is ten points below the recent peak. The Core 6 sub-score is 21.42 — notably low, reflecting that the heaviest-weighted indicators are largely benign. Diffusion at 41.18 means fewer than half of tracked indicators are deteriorating on a rolling basis. Top drivers by weighted contribution are Energy Price Shock, Consumer Confidence, Home Construction, Months Supply of Houses, and Real Income. None of the Core 6 heavyweights — Yield Curve, Financial Conditions, High-Yield Spread — are contributing meaningfully; their activations are at or near zero.
What Changed Today
No indicator changed trend direction today. The score's flatness reflects a static configuration: Energy Price Shock holds at 100% activation with a worsening trend, Consumer Confidence remains at 112.5% activation — the only indicator above 100% — and Real Income continues to worsen at 78% activation. On the improving side, Unemployment Pace (26%), Yield Curve 10Y-3M (28.2%), Consumer Credit Stress (17.6%), and Trade Policy Uncertainty (17.8%) all carry improving trends. Weekly Layoff Filings sits at zero activation with 203,250 claims, a notably clean labor reading. No indicator tripped or untripped a threshold today. The score's stability reflects two offsetting forces: softening consumer fundamentals versus resilient labor and credit conditions.
News Drivers
All three news topics point in the same direction. Iran-US tensions have disrupted Strait of Hormuz flows, directly feeding the Energy Price Shock indicator's 100% activation. China's producer price inflation hitting a 45-month high on energy costs signals that the supply-side shock is not contained to US markets — it is compressing margins across global manufacturing chains. Goldman Sachs pushing its first Fed rate cut forecast to December 2026 extends the restrictive-rate environment, a headwind for housing and consumer credit that is already visible in the Months Supply of Houses reading of 8.5 months. Prediction markets have moved decisively: Polymarket's 2026 recession contract fell from 25% to 22.5% over the week; Kalshi dropped from 23% to 19%. The market is pricing less recession risk even as the inflationary shock deepens — a tension worth monitoring.
Historical Context
At 28, the score sits four points below the 30-day average of 32.1 and ten points below the 90-day maximum of 38. The current All Clear reading is consistent with a mid-cycle soft patch rather than a pre-recession configuration. Periods where the Doom Score held in the high-20s while energy stress ran hot but labor remained intact have historical precedent in 2014-2015, when oil price volatility elevated commodity-linked indicators without transmitting to broader contraction. The key distinction then, as now, is that credit channels remained open — Financial Conditions at -0.51 activation and High-Yield Spread at zero activation confirm that. The 30-day drift downward from 32.1 to 28 suggests the score has been consolidating lower even as the geopolitical backdrop has worsened.
What to Watch
Consumer Confidence at 112.5% activation is the indicator most stretched above its stress threshold; a further deterioration in the Conference Board or Michigan series would widen its contribution. Months Supply of Houses at 8.5 months is elevated — a reading above 9 would push Home Construction and supply indicators deeper into stress. On the labor side, Unemployment Pace at 0.13 carries only 26% activation; a move toward 0.3 would begin to register in the Core 6 sub-score. The Fed's extended pause through December 2026, if confirmed, keeps pressure on Real Income and Personal Savings Rate, both already worsening. Energy Price Shock is the indicator to watch most closely: at 100% activation, it cannot worsen further within its current band, but sustained elevation will begin feeding through to Consumer Confidence and Real Income with a lag.