About TradeTurbulence

What we do

TradeTurbulence measures what is happening to global trade, from the data the institutions that track it publish. We do not summarise the news. Each piece starts from a series and asks what it shows: how big a move is, how rare, and what it is likely to touch.

The site has two halves.

Live data, rebuilt every day from the source:

• the Stress Index, one daily reading of pressure on trade across five pillars, with its methodology and full history published;
• the chokepoint board: traffic through 28 shipping straits and canals against their own baselines;
• economy pages and indicators: oil, the dollar, the rupee and yen, the Treasury curve, the US tariff rate actually paid;
• the Outlook: forecasts of the next official numbers, each with its range and a public record of how often it was right.

Analysis built on that data:

• data-led pieces on geopolitics and trade, markets, macro policy, technology and digital assets;
• “On the record”, on what leaders and business figures say, with each side’s case in its own words;
• “The week”, every Monday;
• explainers that answer the questions readers search for;
• topic guides at the top of each topic.

Our approach

Every number names a public source a reader can fetch again, and nothing is written from memory. A separate check re-derives every figure before publication, and errors are corrected in the open. The full rules are in our editorial standards; every correction is listed on the corrections page.

AI-Assisted Analysis

Pieces are researched, drafted and checked with AI assistance (Claude, by Anthropic). The site’s rules are built into that process. Each number is recorded with its source and date before it is written into a piece. A fresh check re-derives every figure, and scripts refuse to publish a piece that fails it.

A person reviews every piece and approves its publication, which is what the “AI-assisted · human-reviewed” label on each piece means. Forecasts come only from the Outlook, whose models are tested and scored in public.

Editorial independence

Our analysis is not influenced by affiliates, advertisers or data providers. Data providers supply raw data. They have no editorial input, no review rights and no influence over what we publish.

Who we serve

Anyone who needs to know what is moving trade, and by how much: people who run supply chains, traders and investors, policy analysts, journalists and researchers. The Stress Index series is published under CC BY 4.0, free to use with attribution, and every data page names the publisher its figures come from.

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