The CAPE earnings yield minus the ten-year real interest rate — what stocks yield over bonds after inflation, on Shiller’s own convention. Low is expensive.
Deep-tier eras shaded: red = thin vs bonds (the expensive extreme), green = wide vs bonds. Low ECY = expensive — the inversion is the point of this lens.
The zero line is absolute: below it, bonds out-yield stocks. One spell in the computed record — May 1999 → November 2000.
| the spell | S&P +1y from the crossing | S&P +3y |
|---|---|---|
| 1999-May → 2000-Nov · 19 months below zero | +7.8% | -15.8% |
One spell in the computed record. A named state, not a timing signal.
| tier | eras | S&P med +1y | med +3y | worst +3y |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| deep red — thin vs bonds | 9 | +11.3% | +27.9% | -9.6% |
| pale red TODAY | 24 | +13.2% | +30.9% | -37.6% |
| neutral | 14 | +13.9% | +52.5% | -19.8% |
| pale green | 8 | +16.0% | +54.0% | +20.3% |
| deep green — wide vs bonds | 7 | +23.6% | +51.1% | +32.6% |
Counts and medians of the collapsed register — the same eras listed below; medians are records, not rankings (the one-year and three-year columns do not order the same way). Low ECY = expensive: the red rungs are the thin-margin states.
| tier | months | share | longest run |
|---|---|---|---|
| deep red — thin vs bonds | 149 | 19.6% | 30m (1996-03..1998-08) |
| pale red | 116 | 15.2% | 15m (2025-05..2026-08) |
| neutral | 391 | 51.4% | 108m (2009-05..2018-04) |
| pale green | 61 | 8% | 23m (1975-03..1977-01) |
| deep green — wide vs bonds | 44 | 5.8% | 15m (1977-02..1978-04) |
Shares of the 761 post-stabilization months (Mar 1963 → today), each month judged only by history knowable then — the expanding-window rule; the shares move as history accrues.
| entry | tier | ECY | pct | months | S&P +1y | S&P +3y |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2025 · OPEN | pale-red | +1.49 | p17 | 16 | +29.1% | open |
| Oct 2024 | pale-red | +1.52 | p17 | 6 | +17.8% | open |
| Aug 2024 | neutral | +1.82 | p26 | 2 | +18.0% | open |
| Feb 2024 | pale-red | +1.65 | p20 | 6 | +22.1% | open |
| Dec 2023 | neutral | +1.95 | p28 | 2 | +30.0% | open |
| Sep 2023 | pale-red | +1.75 | p24 | 3 | +29.4% | open |
| Nov 2018 | neutral | +1.92 | p29 | 58 | +16.3% | +80.6% |
| May 2018 | pale-red | +1.73 | p24 | 6 | +7.7% | +63.0% |
| May 2009 | neutral | +5.51 | p71 | 108 | +27.4% | +58.0% |
| Dec 2008 | pale-green | +6.60 | p80 | 5 | +30.0% | +51.4% |
Eras of at least two consecutive months in a tier (the VE convention); the raw monthly census — 83 boundary events, 21 lasting a single month — is disclosed on the methodology page.
Shiller’s convention reads the ten-year real rate at 1.33% this month; the market’s TIPS read averages 2.40% — the convention sits -1.07 points below the market, because the 2021–22 inflation burst still rides inside its trailing ten-year window. On the market’s real rate, today’s ECY would be thinner still.
Latest-basis, labeled: the CAPE leg revises, and readings shown are today’s revised history. October 2025 has no reading — the BLS published no CPI for that month; this site publishes only observations that exist. Shiller’s convention real rate (GS10 minus trailing ten-year CPI inflation, his file’s own arithmetic) is shown beside the market’s TIPS read; the two are different instruments and their gap is stated, not reconciled. Counts, never probabilities; descriptive record, never a forecast. As of: CAPE 2026-08-31 · GS10 2026-08-01 · displayed month 2026-08. Methodology →