TradeTurbulence Stress Index
Band Severe · 80–100 · reading for
Trade is under strain on several fronts at once. The index never reached this band in the 2010s.
3 of 5 pillars severe: Shipping routes, Supply chains and Trade policy.
Broad-based: the stress is spread across most of trade (3.8 effective pillars of 5).
A daily 0–100 measure of how hard it is to move and pay for goods across borders — five pillars, built from 10 public sources and published as open data under CC BY 4.0.
Every input is ranked against its own values in a fixed reference decade, 2010–2019, so 50 means “an ordinary day of the 2010s”, not “half of some maximum” — and a disruption that persists keeps reading as one. The reference-decade median is 50.6.
4910 observations · 2008-01-02 to 2026-10-27 · ISO 8601 dates
Trade stress since 2008
Daily index, 0–100. 50 is an ordinary day of the 2010s — every input is ranked against a fixed reference decade, so lasting disruptions are not absorbed.
- Lehman collapse peak 72.5 Trade finance froze and world trade volumes fell by an eighth.
- Euro debt crisis peak 71.7 Funding stress across European banks, which finance much of world trade.
- Oil price collapse peak 60 Brent fell below $30 and the dollar surged.
- US–China tariff escalation peak 75.2 Section 301 tariffs on most Chinese imports.
- Covid-19 shutdown peak 79 Factories, ports and borders closed across the world at once.
- Container crisis peak 67.6 Ports jammed and container freight rates rose roughly tenfold.
- Ukraine invasion peak 74.7 Energy and grain shock; Black Sea shipping disrupted.
- Red Sea diversions peak 58.2 Attacks on shipping sent Suez traffic around the Cape of Good Hope.
- 2025 tariff shock peak 66.9 The broadest US tariff increase in nearly a century.
- Strait of Hormuz closure peak 86.7 Traffic through the Gulf's only sea exit fell to near zero.
The five pillars · 27 October 2026
Shipping routes
Are ships getting through the world's chokepoints, or being forced around them?
The 2 inputs behind this score values, scores and dates
| Input | Signal value | Score | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Route Displacement Index RDI Share of traffic through the world's 28 maritime chokepoints that is on a different route than in 2019–2023. Rerouting conserves ships, so it is the share of traffic, not the total, that reveals a disruption. | 11.485% of chokepoint traffic displaced | 100 reference median 3.804 beyond reference range | |
| Chokepoint tonnage shortfall PORTWATCH Of the deadweight tonnage that normally passes the major chokepoints, the share now missing from the routes that lost it — the closure measure, where the RDI is the diversion measure. | 12.4252% of normal tonnage missing | 91.6 reference median 4.069 |
Supply chains
Are freight, deliveries and inventories under pressure?
The 1 input behind this score values, scores and dates
| Input | Signal value | Score | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Global Supply Chain Pressure Index GSCPI Ocean, air and land freight costs plus delivery times, backlogs and inventories from manufacturing surveys in seven economies, with demand stripped out. In standard deviations from its own average: the December 2021 peak is 4.3. | 1.284standard deviations | 99.2 reference median -0.193 | 28d behind |
Energy costs
Is fuel — the biggest variable cost of moving goods — expensive or unstable?
The 2 inputs behind this score values, scores and dates
| Input | Signal value | Score | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brent crude 20-day realised volatility DCOILBRENTEU How violently fuel is repricing. Unpredictable input costs break shipping contracts and production plans faster than a high but stable price does. | 76.9% annualised series: 115.22 USD per barrel | 100 reference median 25.557 beyond reference range | |
| Real Brent crude price DCOILBRENTEU Brent in today's dollars. Fuel is the largest variable cost of moving goods by sea, air and road; the level matters as well as the swings, and adjusting for inflation keeps a 2026 price comparable with a 2012 one. | 115.2USD, today's prices series: 115.22 USD per barrel | 53.7 reference median 104.822 |
Money and finance
Is the dollar squeezing importers, and is trade credit available?
The 3 inputs behind this score values, scores and dates
| Input | Signal value | Score | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broad dollar index, 63-day change DTWEXBGS About half of world trade is invoiced in dollars. A fast-rising dollar raises import bills and tightens trade finance everywhere outside the US, so appreciation scores as stress. | 0.51% over 63 days series: 121.3202 Index, Jan 2006 = 100 | 48.4 reference median 0.614 | |
| St. Louis Fed Financial Stress Index STLFSI4 A composite of 18 funding, credit and volatility measures. When it rises, the working capital and trade credit that physically move goods gets withdrawn. | -0.6328Index, 0 = normal | 11.5 reference median -0.215 | |
| CBOE Volatility Index VIXCLS The daily risk pulse, carrying the pillar between weekly stress-index releases. It overlaps the St. Louis index by construction, so it is weighted lower. | 17.52Index | 66.5 reference median 15.47 |
Trade policy
How much are tariffs actually costing importers, and how uncertain is policy?
The 2 inputs behind this score values, scores and dates
| Input | Signal value | Score | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| US effective tariff rate DTS-CUSTOMS Customs duties actually deposited at the Treasury over the last 91 days, per dollar of goods imported over the same days — the tariff importers really pay, not the headline schedule. Moves within days of a tariff change. | 7.86% of import value series: 448 USD millions deposited on the day | 100 reference median 1.927 beyond reference range | |
| Trade policy uncertainty EPUTRADE How much US newspaper coverage is about trade-policy uncertainty, from the Baker, Bloom and Davis Economic Policy Uncertainty project. Uncertainty delays orders and investment even before any tariff is collected. | 1212.9311Index | 98.3 reference median 68.852 | 88d behind |
Each input's score is the share of reference-period days on which it was lower. To see one series on its own — its level, its range and its own history — the indicator pages and the chokepoint board break them out.
Reading the scale
| Range | Band | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 80–100 | Severe — now | Trade is under strain on several fronts at once. The index never reached this band in the 2010s. |
| 60–80 | Elevated | Clearly harder than an ordinary day of the 2010s — about one day in four then. At least one pillar is under real strain. |
| 40–60 | Normal | An ordinary day of the 2010s, where more than half of them sat. Friction exists, but nothing is breaking. |
| 20–40 | Settled | Easier than usual: ships are on their normal routes, costs and credit are behaving. |
| 0–20 | Calm | Unusually easy conditions for trade, seen on fewer than one day in fifty in the 2010s. |
Year by year
The annual average and the worst single day of each year — the quickest way to check the index against your own memory of what those years felt like.
Every year since 2008 average, peak and its date
| Year | Average | Peak | Peak date | Average band |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 77.4 | 86.7 | 31 Mar | Elevated |
| 2025 | 61.5 | 66.9 | 23 Jun | Elevated |
| 2024 | 57.3 | 71.6 | 30 Oct | Normal |
| 2023 | 46.3 | 68.7 | 3 Jan | Normal |
| 2022 | 67.2 | 76.5 | 19 Oct | Elevated |
| 2021 | 56.2 | 65.5 | 14 Jan | Normal |
| 2020 | 67.4 | 79.0 | 12 Mar | Elevated |
| 2019 | 62.4 | 78.4 | 2 Jan | Elevated |
| 2018 | 63.1 | 78.3 | 24 Dec | Elevated |
| 2017 | 46.5 | 61.8 | 2 Jan | Normal |
| 2016 | 51.2 | 64.0 | 20 Sep | Normal |
| 2015 | 48.1 | 60.0 | 6 Oct | Normal |
| 2014 | 31.8 | 47.0 | 28 Nov | Settled |
| 2013 | 36.9 | 47.4 | 1 Jan | Settled |
| 2012 | 47.5 | 64.7 | 31 Jan | Normal |
| 2011 | 60.6 | 71.7 | 22 Dec | Elevated |
| 2010 | 54.7 | 72.7 | 31 May | Normal |
| 2009 | 49.3 | 68.9 | 31 Mar | Normal |
| 2008 | 59.8 | 78.4 | 29 Aug | Normal |
Sources · every one re-fetchable
Every source below is public and fetched without an API key. The fetch link is the exact query the pipeline makes, so any reading published here can be reproduced.
All 10 sources publisher, series, lag and the exact fetch link
| Series | Publisher | Latest | Observed | Fetch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crude Oil Prices: Brent — Europe DCOILBRENTEU · daily | U.S. Energy Information Administration via FRED | 115.22 | Fetch | |
| Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers CPIAUCSL · monthly | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics via FRED | 336.298 | Fetch | |
| Nominal Broad U.S. Dollar Index DTWEXBGS · daily | Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System via FRED | 121.3202 | Fetch | |
| St. Louis Fed Financial Stress Index STLFSI4 · weekly | Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis via FRED | -0.6328 | Fetch | |
| CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) VIXCLS · daily | Cboe via FRED | 17.52 | Fetch | |
| Economic Policy Uncertainty: Trade policy EPUTRADE · monthly | Baker, Bloom & Davis via FRED | 1212.9311 | Fetch | |
| Imports of Goods, Balance of Payments Basis BOPGIMP · monthly | U.S. Census Bureau and BEA via FRED | 342232 | Fetch | |
| Global Supply Chain Pressure Index GSCPI · monthly | Federal Reserve Bank of New York | 1.284 | Fetch | |
| Daily Treasury Statement: customs duties deposited DTS-CUSTOMS · daily | U.S. Department of the Treasury, Daily Treasury Statement | 448 | Fetch | |
| Daily chokepoint transits and capacity (28 chokepoints) PORTWATCH · daily | IMF PortWatch | — | Fetch |
What the index cannot see
It has no daily container freight rate (every one is licensed), no view of services trade, and two of its pillars are measured in the United States. It measures friction, not the volume of goods traded. The slowest input today is 88 days behind the calendar, and every component states the date it was actually observed.
It is a stress measure, not a forecast. Nothing in its construction implies direction, and a high reading is a description of conditions rather than a prediction about them.
Take the data
The full history is open data under CC BY 4.0. Use it in research, in a newsletter, in a term sheet — the only ask is that you credit TradeTurbulence Stress Index (TTSI), TradeTurbulence and link back to this page.
There is no key and no rate limit.
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Why this index exists
Anyone can tell you that trade conditions “feel volatile”. Very little tells you whether today is genuinely unusual, which part of the system is under strain, or how today compares with the container crisis or the first weeks of Covid on the same scale.
The index answers one question with one number: compared with an ordinary day of the 2010s, how hard is it right now to move goods across borders, price them and pay for them? Five pillars break that down: whether ships are getting through, whether supply chains are jammed, what fuel costs, whether money and credit are tight, and what tariffs importers are paying.
It is deliberately narrow. It does not forecast, it does not recommend trades, and it does not measure how much is being traded. It measures friction.
What we promise
- Every input is public and named. Ten series from IMF PortWatch, the New York Fed, the US Treasury, FRED and the Economic Policy Uncertainty project, all fetched without an API key. The exact queries are on the methodology page.
- Nothing is scraped and nothing is invented. If a source fails, the published number does not update. A stale reading, clearly labelled, is better than a fresh-looking guess.
- The scale does not drift. Every input is ranked against the same fixed reference decade, so a disruption that lasts reads as a disruption for as long as it lasts, and Severe means the same thing every year.
- The data is yours. Full daily history, CC BY 4.0, no signup.
In our analysis
- Without computers, chips and fuel, US import prices rose 3.9%
- The rupee gained 1.8% in a week. It is still weak
- The 10-year rose 1.34 points. The real yield was 1.23 of them
- Bab el-Mandeb fell below its 2024 low. Suez did not.
- The surcharge ended in July. The deficit began widening in May.
- A Stress Index of 80 is higher than any day of 2010–2019
- The Bosporus is 34% of the rise in route displacement. Hormuz, 3%
- Brent rose 10% in a week. In rupees it set a record
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