Spread Shock Detector

What this tool does

The Spread Shock Detector is designed to identify when sovereign bond markets stop moving together in a normal way. Instead of only showing current yields, it tracks cross-country spread dispersion, yield shock intensity, and the markets contributing most to current divergence.

The result is a live signal layer that helps highlight when the bond market environment shifts from normal conditions into elevated stress or shock territory.

Why spread shocks matter

Bond markets often look calm on the surface until spreads start to move in a more fragmented way. When yield gaps widen sharply across countries, it can signal that markets are reacting very differently to inflation pressure, growth fears, policy expectations, fiscal stress, or global risk events.

That makes cross-country spread divergence worth watching closely. In some cases, spread shocks can be an early sign that the market is moving away from one broad global narrative and into a more unstable or uneven macro environment.

Live spread shock dashboard

Use the live dashboard below to monitor the current shock score, regime, active alerts, top movers, and recent alert history.

What the shock score means

The shock score is a simplified live measure of how unusual current cross-country spread behavior looks relative to normal sovereign bond market conditions.

It combines factors such as:

• Spread dispersion across countries

• The size of recent yield moves

• The markets driving the largest current deviations

A higher score suggests that sovereign bond markets are moving less like one system and more like a set of increasingly disconnected markets.

How to read the alert regimes

The detector classifies the market into four broad regimes:

• Normal — bond markets remain within a relatively stable cross-country range

• Elevated — divergence is building and worth monitoring

• Stress — dispersion is high enough to suggest meaningful market fragmentation

• Shock — sovereign bond markets are no longer moving together in a normal way

These labels are designed to make the current bond market environment easier to interpret at a glance.