Radar Perene / Archive / episode
December in reverse, in thirty days
◦ Written under index methodology v1 (in effect until 15 Jul 2026). The current series is v2 — readings quoted here may differ from those shown today. See the methodology.
Episode
The extreme
December 2022 closed the year with the entire structure shrunk: the intermarket at the absolute floor of the scale, the investor downcast, the regime in hard risk-off. January 2023 flipped the switch in thirty days. The intermarket score jumped from 0.17 to 66.15, back to moderate risk-on; Ânima recovered from 30.4 to 67.6, into extreme optimism; and the cyclical/defensive ratio made the largest move on the board, crossing from one side of the average to the other. Capital traded shelter for cycle in a single month.
What happened next
The 30-day rebound was real, but selective in what lasted. The cyclical bet born in January did not hold at once: by March the money was running for defense again, with the cyclical/defensive ratio plunging back and mood sinking to 20.6. What January inaugurated — the willingness to reprice risk upward — would only firm up for real months later, at the turn into December 2023, when the structure locked in the cyclical bet with domestic risk at 89.7.
What didn't happen
January's rebound did not seal the turn. Anyone reading the 30-day swing as "now it's going" would have been contradicted by March, when defense returned and mood sank. And January itself gave warning: the internal risk axis hesitated (from 37.3 to 43.7, stalling at neutral) without underwriting the euphoria of mood and prices. 2023 would still be a year of mismatches — the month corrected the pessimism, not the discord.
Honest verdict
January 2023 undid in thirty days the pessimism December had left on the floor — but it did not close the discord that would mark the year. A month can erase the one before it without thereby closing the story.
Continue the story: The house in the dark (2022 election) · A year of discord · What the intermarket reading is →
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Read also: The house in the dark: the structure's floor at the end of 2022 preceded a year of discord · A year of discord: when mood and structure barely agreed · What is the intermarket reading?
Characters: Structure (intermarket) · Cyclicals × defensives
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