We’ll only know with the benefit of hindsight whether or not we’re in a recession or going into a recession.

But because these charts are rarely steadfast in their appearance, telltale signals can be interrupted by bad data or can mix together to create a confusing chart. "There is a ground truth ...

This narrative of contradictions is illustrated nicely in this chart from Goldman Sachs, which shows how soft data has been surprising to the downside while hard data has been surprising to the ...