copper steel ratio
What it checks
Copper outpacing steel = capex cycle accelerating → long industrials.
Mechanism
Copper/steel ratio is a forward indicator of industrial-cycle leadership.
Signal rule
PCOPPUSDM / WPU101; 60d z; long industrial cycle when z > +1; hold 30/60d
Data dependencies
fred_macroWorker data table — see services/worker schema.
daily_pricesAdjusted-close OHLCV for every US-listed ticker; primary price feed.
Expected edge
- Paper alpha
- Granger-causal 1-2mo
- Paper window
- 1992-2012
Mu-Ye 2014: Granger-causal at 1-2mo.
Example tickers where this is likely to fire
Illustrative only — the signal fires based on the live data, not a fixed list.
Related families
macro regimeMacroBeyond regime_overlay (#10) which uses VIX + SPY trend, this family keys off the macro regime detected from FRED data: term-spread inversion (10Y−2Y < 0), credit-spread widening or compression (BAA−10Y z), and Fed funds cycle direction. Single-name version: gate the simple long-trend signal (SMA50 > SMA200) on the FRED macro regime — full long only in risk-on, half-size in neutral, flat in risk-off, short in inversion.
yield curve sector rotationMacroYield-curve slope (10y - 2y) gates cyclical vs defensive sector longs.
jolts hiring momentumMomentumBelo, Lin & Bazdresch (2014) JAE "Labor hiring, investment, and stock return predictability": firms (and industries) with strong hiring growth tend to outperform over the following 1-2 quarters because hiring precedes earnings — management is acting on private information about demand. v1 is industry-level via BLS JOLTS supersector openings: long when YoY openings growth > +20% (strong sectoral demand), short when < −10% (sectoral contraction).
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