A year of discord: when mood and structure barely agreed

Episode

The extreme

After December 2022 left the structure at the floor of the scale, 2023 should have been the year of reconciliation between what the investor feels and where the money actually settles. It wasn't. Through the year, mood and the architecture of prices spent most of the time telling different stories — sometimes sentiment ahead, sometimes prices; almost never the two together. It was a year of mismatch, not of marching in step.

What happened next

The year's three portraits say it all. In March, the money was running for shelter — the cyclical/defensive ratio plunged -1.54 of deviation — while mood sank into deep pessimism (20.6): prices and sentiment aligned, but aligned on defense. In June the reading flipped without resolving itself: Ânima crossed into extreme optimism (69.2) on its own while relative prices pulled back and did not confirm. Only in December 2023 did the structure finally lock in the cyclical bet (ratio at +1.17, domestic risk at 89.7) — and even then, mood pulled back to neutral (52.1), against the grain.

What didn't happen

The year never had that clean moment when mood and structure rise hand in hand and seal the turn. Anyone waiting for that double confirmation would have waited the whole year. And the mismatch did not invalidate the recovery: it happened, only without the simultaneous blessing of both axes. Discord was not a synonym for paralysis.

Honest verdict

2023 showed that sentiment and relative prices can spend a full year out of phase — and that recovery does not require the agreement of the two to occur. When they tell different stories, it's worth hearing both before choosing one.

Continue the story: The house in the dark (2022 election) · December in reverse (Jan 2023) · What the Ânima Index is →

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Characters: Mood · Structure (intermarket) · Cyclicals × defensives