About
Editorial standards and methodology
Where our numbers come from, how the Daily Brief is produced, and how we handle corrections.
Principles
- Official sources first. We use primary data from government agencies, central banks and exchanges wherever possible, and we name the source of every chart.
- Describe, don't speculate. Markets move for many reasons at once. Our daily editions report what moved and by how much, and compare it with history; they do not attribute moves to causes we cannot verify.
- Precise claims only. We describe a level as a "record" only when it exceeds every value in the complete historical record available to us, and we say "highest since" with the specific date when it does not.
- No advice. We explain; we do not recommend. Nothing on this site is investment, tax or legal advice.
How the Daily Brief is produced
Each morning, our publishing system gathers the previous session's official closing data and assembles the Morning Brief using fixed rules and pre-written phrasing. The same rules run every day, so the brief is consistent and free of opinion. Each brief is kept permanently in our archive. When data for a session arrives late, the edition says so. Archive editions compiled from historical data are labeled as such.
Data sources and conventions
- Stock indexes: official closing values of the S&P 500 (S&P Dow Jones Indices), Nasdaq Composite (Nasdaq), Dow Jones Industrial Average (S&P Dow Jones Indices), Russell 2000 (FTSE Russell) and the Cboe Volatility Index (Cboe), via the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and exchange data distributors.
- Treasury yields: the U.S. Treasury's daily par yield curve rates, with history from the Federal Reserve's H.15 release via FRED. Yield changes are shown in basis points (hundredths of a percentage point).
- Currencies: the European Central Bank's euro foreign exchange reference rates, published each business day around 2:15 p.m. Central European Time, converted to U.S. dollar quotes. They are not the same as New York closing rates.
- Commodities: front-month futures settlement prices from CME Group (NYMEX and COMEX) and ICE Futures Europe. Where possible, daily changes are computed on the same contract, so the roll from one contract month to the next is not reported as a price move.
- Bitcoin: Coinbase daily prices via FRED.
- Economic data and calendar: the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the U.S. Census Bureau, the Federal Reserve Board, Freddie Mac, the University of Michigan and other agencies via FRED; release schedules from the BLS, BEA and Federal Reserve. Recession dates are from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Third-party headlines
Our "Worth reading" lists link to reporting by other publishers. We show only the headline and the publisher's name and send readers to the original article; the selection is based on relevance to the day's markets. Those publishers are responsible for their own content.
Corrections
We aim to be accurate, and we fix mistakes promptly. If you spot an error, please email garrotchever@gmail.com with the page address and the issue. Material corrections are noted on the affected page.