Recession Timing Dashboard

Score-based economic gate. Unemployment Rate Trend counts as 2; retail sales, industrial production, real income, and housing starts count as 1; timing turns on at score 2.

1. Stay invested by default.
2. Turn timing on when the selected indicators sum to a score of at least 2.
3. When timing is on, hold the SPY ETF only when price is above its 200-day simple moving average, checked daily.
4. When timing is off, ignore the moving-average rule and remain invested.

Indicators used by this strategy (links to FRED):

• Unemployment Rate Trend; score 2.
• Real Retail Sales Growth; score 1.
• Industrial Production Growth; score 1.
• Real Personal Income Growth; score 1.
• Housing Starts Growth; score 1.

Backtest is structured to use FRED real-time revision events when available. Before an indicator's vintage history begins, final revised FRED values are used with an approximate one-month reporting lag; indicators do not contribute before their own series has enough history. The SPY ETF/Proxy uses a synthetic S&P 500 total-return approximation through 1987, the Yahoo ^SP500TR daily total-return index from 1988 until SPY starts, and adjusted SPY prices after inception. The pre-1988 synthetic segment is reduced by an inception-era SPY expense assumption. The historical test begins once the selected moving average is available. No explicit bid/ask trading cost is applied.