We had four signal sources: FRED macro data, RSS news, the geopolitical risk index, and ORALE prediction markets. All of them measure what's happening in the world. None of them measure what people are doing about it. That's a blind spot, and we found a way to fill it with Google Trends — for free.

The Insight

Every other signal source in our system reads the world — unemployment numbers, news headlines, geopolitical tension, whale wallet moves. They answer "what's happening?" But there's a different question: what are ordinary people quietly doing about it?

When people are scared, they don't usually search "market crash." That's what pundits type. Real people search practical things: "how to sell stocks," "withdraw 401k," "unemployment benefits," "food bank near me," "cancel subscription." These aren't opinions. They're actions in progress. Someone Googling "hardship withdrawal" at 2 AM is telling you something that no FRED dataset will capture for another 30 days.

The same works in reverse. When people feel invincible, they search "how to invest," "best stocks to buy," "options trading," "crypto wallet," "day trading." That's not confidence — it's crowd euphoria. And crowds at peak euphoria tend to be wrong.

The Implementation

We built two search term baskets:

Stress basket (13 terms) — things people search when they're quietly preparing for hardship:

Financial repositioning:  "how to sell stocks" · "withdraw 401k" · "CD rates" · "high yield savings"
Employment anxiety:       "unemployment benefits" · "severance package" · "resume template"
Housing / debt pressure:  "sell my house fast" · "debt consolidation" · "hardship withdrawal"
Consumer pullback:        "cancel subscription" · "food bank near me"

Euphoria basket (10 terms) — things people search when they think they can't lose:

Investment appetite:  "how to invest" · "best stocks to buy" · "options trading" · "crypto wallet"
Speculation:          "day trading" · "side hustle" · "passive income"
Big purchases:        "new car deals" · "mortgage rates" · "home buying"

We pull each term's search interest over the past 3 months via Google Trends, average the latest two weeks for stability, and compute a simple ratio: Stress ÷ Euphoria.

The Signal Logic

Ratio > 2.0   →  Population quietly de-risking. Strong risk-off. Favor bonds, gold, short equities.
Ratio > 1.5   →  Stress building. Mild safety rotation. Staples, light bonds.
Ratio < 0.4   →  Extreme euphoria. Contrarian alarm. History says this ends badly. Hedge.
Ratio < 0.6   →  Mild euphoria. Light hedge positions.
0.6 – 1.5     →  Balanced. No signal. No regime shift detected.

First Read

Our first real run came back: Stress 42.3 / Euphoria 40.4 / Ratio 1.05. Dead balanced. No signal generated.

That's... actually perfect. If the system screamed on the first read, we'd be suspicious. A balanced ratio in a relatively normal market means the baskets are calibrated reasonably. The real test comes when something shifts — when stress starts climbing or euphoria spikes. We'll know within one pipeline cycle.

Behavioral > Emotional

Most sentiment indicators measure what people say — surveys, social media tone, put/call ratios. We're measuring what people do. The difference matters. People lie to pollsters. They don't lie to Google at 2 AM.

Cost: $0

Google Trends is free. We pull 23 terms once per day (the underlying data is weekly resolution anyway), cache for 20 hours, and rate-limit to be polite. No API key required. The signal source with the most direct connection to human behavior costs literally nothing.

Don't track what people say about the market. Track what they're quietly doing about their lives. That's where the signal is.