Commodity context
Oil, inflation-adjusted
Historical real-price position. This is macro context, not an investment-attractiveness rating.
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Lower real priceHigher real price
Long-term US stock valuation
US stocks look expensive
For a 10+ year investor, this framework asks one question first: how expensive or cheap are US stocks relative to the modern historical record? The answer is valuation context — not a prediction of what markets do next month.
Market PulseLess favourable → More favourable
Eight-asset landscape
One score. Seven native measures.
US stocks are scored. International stocks, housing, Bitcoin, Ethereum, gold, silver and cash are measured on their own terms. The rails show where each metric sits inside its own methodology — never a fake common ranking.
Macro context
What is happening around valuation?
Valuation, recession stress, volatility and commodity prices answer different questions. Keeping them separate prevents a calm market from being mistaken for a cheap one.
Global housing
BIS real residential-property prices, year on year
Different geographies are shown as growth context. National index levels are not treated as directly comparable valuation scores.
Redistribution-cleared history
Where does today sit in history?
Four long-run series are available for public display. The page never fabricates a chart simply because a current metric exists.
Historical series
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1 of 4
—latest observation
Historical series loads when this section enters view.
—Drag to browse history
1 of 4
Seven historical episodes
What valuation caught — and what it missed.
These episodes are selected with hindsight. They show why valuation can matter over long horizons while remaining a poor tool for precise market timing.
Historical exhibits load when this section enters view.
Understand the indicators
What are these numbers actually telling me?
Financial shorthand is useful only after it is translated. Each indicator below answers one question, has one limitation, and should not be treated as a prediction machine.
Valuation
Shiller CAPE
CAPE compares the stock-market price with ten years of inflation-adjusted corporate earnings. Using a decade of earnings reduces the effect of a single boom or recession year.
Current reading loads from current.json.
Valuation
Market cap / GDP
This compares the value of publicly traded US companies with the size of the US economy. A very high ratio means investors are paying a historically large price for the listed corporate sector relative to output.
Current reading loads from current.json.
Economic stress
Sahm Rule
The Sahm Rule looks for rapid deterioration in the labour market. It compares the three-month average unemployment rate with its lowest three-month average during the previous twelve months. A rise around 0.50 percentage points has historically been associated with recession.
Current reading loads from current.json.
Market stress
High-yield spread
The high-yield spread is the extra interest investors demand to lend to riskier companies rather than the US government. Wider spreads usually mean greater concern about defaults, liquidity or financial stress.
Current reading loads from current.json.
Interest rates
Real Treasury yield
A real Treasury yield is the inflation-adjusted return available from US government debt. Higher real yields create stronger competition for equities because investors can earn a meaningful real return with much less business risk.
Current reading loads from current.json.
Crypto cycle position
200-week moving average
The 200-week moving average smooths almost four years of weekly crypto prices. The multiple shows how far the current price sits above or below that long-term trend — not whether the asset is a buy or sell.
Bitcoin and Ethereum readings load from current.json.
Housing affordability
Price to income
House-price-to-income compares residential property prices with household incomes. A high historical percentile means homes are expensive relative to what households earn, compared with the series' own past.
Current reading loads from current.json.
Precious metals
Inflation-adjusted price
A dollar price from decades ago is not directly comparable with today's dollar. Gold and silver are therefore adjusted for inflation before today's real price is compared with the post-1971 history.
Current readings load from current.json.
Cash
Real cash yield
This subtracts CPI inflation from the three-month Treasury-bill yield using the latest month available for both. Positive means the short government rate is beating inflation; negative means purchasing power is still being eroded.
Current reading loads from current.json.
What is the VIX?
The VIX is an options-derived measure of expected S&P 500 volatility over roughly the next 30 days. It measures expected turbulence, not whether stocks are cheap or expensive. TimeToBuyOrSell does not assign the VIX an investment-attractiveness score.
What is nominal yield versus real yield?
A nominal yield is the interest rate before inflation. A real yield attempts to describe purchasing-power return after inflation. Both matter, but they answer different questions.
What is the yield curve?
The yield curve compares government borrowing rates at different maturities. This site shows the 10-year Treasury rate minus the 3-month Treasury rate. Inversions have historically often preceded recessions, but timing varies substantially.
What is forward P/E?
Forward price-to-earnings compares today's price with analysts' expected earnings over the coming year. Here it is used only to compare the approved international index with the approved US comparator on compatible dates.
What does percentile mean?
A percentile describes where a current observation sits inside its own historical reference distribution. A 90th percentile price measure is higher than about 90% of observations in that reference. It is not a probability of a future event.
How the US score works
Two valuation inputs. Equal weight. No black box.
The headline score is deliberately simple: half CAPE cheapness and half market-cap-to-GDP cheapness, each measured against a fixed modern-history reference.
Input 1 · 50%
Shiller CAPE
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Input 2 · 50%
Market capitalisation / GDP
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Calculation
percentile = 100 × (below + 0.5 × equal) / observationscheapness = 100 − percentilescore_raw = 0.50 × CAPE cheapness + 0.50 × market-cap/GDP cheapnessscore_display = round-half-up to nearest 5The interface shows the exact raw score prominently so it is not mistaken for a literal zero. The canonical nearest-five display band remains visible beside it and is still used for the public condition label.
Thresholds, not forecasts
What would change the view?
Limitations
What this framework cannot tell you
Data and sources
Evidence on demand.
Current observations carry source, date, status and precision metadata. Long histories appear only where the package records an affirmative redistribution basis.
Primary providers in the current package include Robert Shiller, the Federal Reserve and FRED, BEA, BLS, MSCI, OECD, BIS, Binance and the World Bank. A downloadable series being accessible does not automatically mean it may be republished; access, calculation permission and redistribution clearance are treated separately.
FAQ
Questions worth asking.
Why is the raw US-stock score 1.36 while the display band is 0?
The exact calculated score is 1.36. The methodology also rounds the score to the nearest five points for its display band, so 1.36 becomes 0. That does not mean the underlying calculation is mathematically exactly zero; both values are shown to make the distinction clear.
Why can valuation be very expensive while stress is low?
They measure different things. Valuation asks what investors are paying relative to long-run fundamentals. Credit spreads and the Sahm Rule ask whether financial or labour-market stress is currently elevated. Markets can be expensive and calm at the same time.
Why does only US stocks get a 0–100 score?
The score methodology was designed specifically for long-term US-stock valuation using CAPE and market-cap-to-GDP. Other assets have different economics and therefore use their own native measures rather than an invented common ranking.
Does “Gold very high” mean Gold should be sold?
No. It means Gold's inflation-adjusted price is near the high end of its post-1971 historical range. That is a descriptive historical position, not an allocation instruction.
Why are some charts unavailable even when a current value exists?
The product only publishes long historical arrays when their redistribution basis is cleared. A sparse current observation and a full downloadable history can have different rights requirements.
Is this investment advice?
No. TimeToBuyOrSell is an educational long-term valuation framework. It does not provide personalised financial advice, short-term forecasts or trading signals.