LESSON 1 / 4 · 9 MIN
The three layouts
Build the screens once and reuse them forever.
These are the three screens we use to teach a macro workshop. Each one answers a question, and the order is deliberate: prices, then employment, then the cycle.
Layout 1 — Prices
- ▸SPX, monthly, log scale, 'All' range.
- ▸Recession shading on top.
- ▸Inflation panel below: headline CPI first, and only that one. Turn on core, PCE and the 3-month impulse later, one at a time.
Tip
The one-line-first rule is a teaching trick that also works when you are alone: a panel with four lines from minute one means that while you are thinking about Volcker, you are actually decoding the green line.
Layout 2 — Employment
- ▸Same top chart: SPX monthly with recessions.
- ▸Employment panel: payroll creation, unemployment rate, market tightness, weekly claims.
- ▸Sahm rule as a separate panel — the version with the [1] in it.
Layout 3 — Cycle
- ▸SPX monthly with recessions, again — the constant across all three.
- ▸Yield curve with inversion and un-inversion dates marked.
- ▸Macro thermometer. Monthly chart only.
Key idea
The chart that repeats in all three is the point. One constant reference — eighty years of the S&P with recessions shaded — and a different explanatory panel below it each time. You are not looking at three markets, you are asking three questions about the same one.