Every single-stock thesis sits inside a regime. A great business at the top of an expansion is a different bet from the same business at the start of a recession. The Macro tab is where you check the weather before you pick the stock.

Four numbers do most of the work in describing a macro regime: the yield curve, the unemployment rate, the inflation rate, and the Federal Reserve's policy rate. Each one tells you something different, and the combination tells you what regime you're standing in. In a normal economy, longer-term bonds pay higher rates than shorter-term bonds because lenders want compensation for tying money up longer.

When that flips — short rates above long rates — the curve is INVERTED. Inversion has preceded every U.S.

recession of the last 50 years, typically by 12-24 months. It's the single most-watched recession signal.