Excess Returns · Thursday, August 6, 2026
Chan Yang explains that the importance of leading indicators is dynamic and context-dependent, with Vaydia Perception curating about a thousand global inputs. He notes that consumer sentiment's predictive power has diminished due to shifts in economic drivers like inflation, making alternative consumer measures more relevant.
“So, so that's the kind of manpower where we do the curation. After that, you throw it to the model and the model tells you, okay, at this point in time, this thing matters.”
“So, yeah, I don't think, um, it's like a fixed answer. But the idea is that we clearly have to acknowledge that economies are shifting, you know, manufacturing versus services, right? Or online data, like the classic example is consumer sentiment. Because consumer sentiment has become like pretty much useless over time as the things have shifted.”
“But there's alternative measures for, um, the consumer that gives you good reads. Right? And and I would argue one of the reasons people might think it stopped working is because we've lived in this post-pandemic, price level as well as inflation, um, kind of environment, where it's not just the rate of inflation, but the fact price levels reset higher, wages haven't kept up.”