Could surprise indices explain market movements?
Surprise indices are an easy way of mapping the current state of an economy
Our index confirms that the US economy has been losing steam the past few weeks
Could EURUSD moves be explained by our surprise indices?

We have to highlight the fact that economists tend to become more optimistic especially when the economy is assumed to be progressing well. This potentially gives rise to more negative surprises. This attitude is also shared by central banks when examining their forecasting record. For example, the ECB tends to produce inflation projections that show that the Bank is close to its target at the end of the forecasting window examined, despite its recent dismal record.
Euro/dollar and the surprise indicesThe key motivation for the creation of surprise indices is to unmask any possible correlation with key market assets. Therefore, we tried to tie up the recent trend of the surprise indices with the performance of instruments like the EURUSD. Interestingly, the progressive and significant divergence of the US and the German surprise indices over the summer, seen quite clearly in Chart 1 above, can explain to a certain degree the strong bearish move recorded in EURUSD during the July-September period. More recently, the converging US and the German surprise indices are bound to have played a role in the EURUSD upleg registered since early October.
The long-term relationship between the US surprise index and EURUSD is presented in Chart 2 below and, at times, the negative correlation tends to be rather strong. Interestingly, since the start of 2023 this correlation has been strengthening as strong US data releases fueled the sell-off in EURUSD. A growing US economy, especially when other developed economies are going through a rough patch, tends to attract global investor interest. This situation increases demand for the US dollar, as investors want to take advantage of investment opportunities. However, since early September, this relationship turned positive, potentially pointing to other factors being behind the recent EURUSD move.

Like EURUSD, there appears to be a strong relationship between the S&P 500 cash index and the US surprise index. Since early-2023 this relationship has been getting stronger with the current correlation being very close to 1, the strongest possible positive correlation. This situation is expected as the stock market, at normal times, reflects the current economic conditions and the market participants’ expectations about the future. Therefore, we can assume that the S&P 500 rally during 2023 was fueled by consistent upside surprises in US data.

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