What every name in the terminal means in market terms, and exactly how a brew is sealed, judged and scored.
Witch Terminal is a weekly macro training ritual. Each week you read six rows of real market evidence, rule on each, and seal one call on where the S&P 500 goes by Friday. The Reckoning judges it against the market, and your record shows how well you read the evidence. It is a training game, not investment advice.
Witch Terminal is a weekly macro training ritual. Each week you read six rows of real market evidence, rule on each, and seal one call on where the S&P 500 goes by Friday. The Reckoning judges it against the market, and your record shows how well you read the evidence. It is a training game, not investment advice.
The market dashboard
18 jars of end-of-day market data on three shelves, two rows each. Every row is the evidence for one of the six questions, and every jar shows the date of the close it holds. Nothing on the shelf is live.
Headline indices
“Heading into Friday, is the index trend behind you or against you?”
Reads the direction of the three headline indices over the week. Bullish when they rise together by a clear margin, bearish when they fall together by a clear margin; a small or split move reads neutral.
Measures primary beta and trend direction, focused on price action and momentum. Read the three weekly moves together: all three rising is a trend behind you; a split between them usually means chop.
Market internals
“Is this move broad, or is a narrow group carrying it?”
Reads who is carrying the move. Bullish when breadth is clearly positive and small caps or cyclicals are joining in; bearish when breadth is clearly negative and megacap tech is carrying the index alone.
Evaluates rally quality, concentration risk and capital rotation across market caps and factors. Breadth above zero means small caps are keeping up. A big tech lead with breadth below zero means a few megacaps are carrying the index. Value lead above zero means cyclicals are joining in.
Stress
“Is volatility giving you room, or warning you off?”
Reads fear. Calm when the VIX is low, sitting comfortably below its three-month, not jumping, and credit spreads are not widening. Fear when the VIX curve turns (the near month at or above the three-month) or spreads widen.
Combines equity volatility, the volatility term structure and credit risk to gauge systemic fear versus calm. A VIX curve above zero means fear is concentrated in the next few weeks. Widening credit spreads often show stress before stocks do.
Rates and the dollar
“Are yields and the dollar spiking out of control, or settling smoothly?”
Reads rate and dollar shocks. Stable when the two-year yield and the dollar are flat or easing; a shock when the two-year yield jumps or the dollar spikes.
The 2Y yield is the primary proxy for short-term Fed policy and the first rate to react to CPI and jobs data. A calm 2Y and dollar after news means the market absorbed it; a sharp jump means it did not. A curve below zero is inverted.
Real rates and the haven
“Are real rates and inflation a headwind or a tailwind for stocks?”
Reads the real cost of money. A tailwind when real yields fall while inflation expectations hold steady; a headwind when real yields or inflation expectations rise. Gold is context, not a vote.
Measures the real cost of capital, valuation headwinds and inflation expectations, using gold as the cross-asset check. Real yield plus breakeven is the 10-year yield, so together they show whether a move in rates is inflation fear or real tightening. Gold usually rises when real yields fall.
Risk appetite
“Is risk-on liquidity flowing in or draining out?”
Reads financial conditions and the speculative bid. Loose and bid when conditions are easier than average and Bitcoin is rising; being sold when conditions tighten, Bitcoin drops hard or oil spikes.
Tracks financial conditions and speculative capital flow across alternative risk assets and energy. NFCI below zero means conditions are looser than average. Oil can mislead: rising on strong demand is risk-on, rising on a supply shock is an inflation risk.
Where the weekly call is made
Rule on the six questions, one per shelf row, and seal. The brew is the sum of your answers: its direction is where they lean on balance (clearly more bullish than bearish makes it bullish, and the reverse bearish; anything close is neutral).
Your weekly call on the S&P 500
Bullish, neutral or bearish, sealed once a week and judged at the Reckoning. It cannot be edited once sealed.
How one-sided your evidence is, 1 to 10
Worked out from your answers, never chosen: higher when all six are answered, lean the same way and agree with each other. Conviction never changes XP; Calibration compares it with how often you turn out right.
Friday's 4pm New York close
The moment every brew of the week is judged. See Rules of Engagement for exactly how.
The discipline check
Checks two rules for every brew, the Wednesday deadline and reviewing the last Reckoning, and rules it clean or broken. Being wrong is never a broken rule.
Your record
Every brew you have sealed, with its verdict, the XP it earned, its live progress while pending and its post-mortem once settled. For an account it is kept on the server; a verdict cannot change once its Friday close is recorded.
What each mark in the Vault means. The headline on each settled brew says two things apart: whether the call was right, and whether you did it right. "Wrong · clean week" is the market surprising you, and still earns the clean week. Only "rule broken" is a failure, whether the call was right or not.
Thesis against reality
Once a brew settles: each answer against what its row read when you sealed, and what it read at Friday’s close, beside the reason you wrote when sealing (if you wrote one). Publishing your review (with a one-line lesson if you like) before you seal the next brew is part of a clean week.
Your reason and your lesson are both optional and earn no XP. Both are final: the reason is sealed with the brew, and a published review cannot be rewritten.
Your mentor’s lesson: the week talked through in whole sentences, once its whole picture is in (Friday’s close and the week’s chronicle). It starts from last week and the lesson you wrote then, quotes what the jars said when you sealed and what changed by the close, sets your read against the result, and ends on one rule for next week. It is written from your stored week alone and never says why a market moved. The same facts sit below it, line by line. Your review opens only when the whole picture is in.
The bonus call on the week’s big event
In a week with a big event still ahead (the Fed, CPI, jobs or PPI), an optional question asks whether the S&P 500 will move 1% or more that day. It is judged on that day’s close against the day before. A right Omen earns +50 XP in a clean week; a wrong or skipped one costs nothing, and it never changes your main call.
Your habits, counted
After 8 settled brews with a Shelf check: the rows you most often go against, and the patterns that repeat in your record. It describes the past, never predicts, and never touches XP.
The crowd, anonymised
Every signed-in brew of the week, added up: how the crowd leans, where it agrees with the shelf and its blind spots. Only totals ever leave the server, and only once at least 10 brews are in. It opens after you seal, so the crowd cannot sway your read. The Coven comes with Arcana.
The chronicles
Each Reckoning week, frozen at its close: the jars, what each row read, the releases and the official headlines of the week, and, when the Coven was large enough, who was right.
The paid tier
The deeper reading of your record and the crowd. See Data & tiers for what it adds.