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Meridian Codebook

Precise definitions and sources for all dashboard statistics

Data Sources

Source API Auth Frequency Data Type
FRED Primary api.stlouisfed.org/fred API Key (free) Daily/Monthly/Quarterly Actual/Historical
ECB SDMX data-api.ecb.europa.eu No Monthly/Daily Actual/Historical
Yahoo Finance query1.finance.yahoo.com No Real-time Market Prices
CoinGecko api.coingecko.com/api/v3 No Real-time Crypto Prices
IMF DataMapper Projections imf.org/external/datamapper/api No Annual Forecasts to 2030
World Bank api.worldbank.org/v2 No Annual Historical (lagged)
Japan e-Stat dashboard.e-stat.go.jp/api No Monthly/Quarterly Actual/Historical
Hacker News hacker-news.firebaseio.com + hn.algolia.com No Real-time News Feed
DBnomics api.db.nomics.world/v22 No Monthly ISM PMI (Leading Indicator)
HuggingFace huggingface.co/api No Daily LLM Benchmarks
Vast.ai console.vast.ai/api/v0 Optional Real-time GPU Spot Pricing

US Economy (FRED) Actual Data

Current economic indicators from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED). Updated monthly/quarterly with actual reported values.

Metric Definition Source Series ID Frequency
US GDP Growth Real GDP percent change, seasonally adjusted annual rate FRED A191RL1Q225SBEA Quarterly
US Inflation (CPI) Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, YoY change FRED CPIAUCSL Monthly
US Unemployment Civilian Unemployment Rate, seasonally adjusted FRED UNRATE Monthly
US Real Rate 10-Year Treasury Inflation-Indexed Security, Constant Maturity FRED REAINTRATREARAT10Y Daily
Fed Funds Rate Effective Federal Funds Rate FRED FEDFUNDS Monthly
US Debt/GDP Federal Debt: Total Public Debt as Percent of GDP FRED GFDEGDQ188S Quarterly

Risk & Volatility

Market risk indicators and forward-looking metrics. These are critical for understanding market sentiment and financial conditions.

Metric Definition How to Interpret Source Code
VIX CBOE Volatility Index - measures 30-day expected S&P 500 volatility <15: Low fear (complacent)
15-20: Normal
20-30: Elevated fear
>30: High stress		 FRED VIXCLS
HY Credit Spread ICE BofA High Yield Option-Adjusted Spread - spread over Treasuries for junk bonds <300bp: Risk-on (tight)
300-500bp: Normal
500-800bp: Stressed
>800bp: Crisis		 FRED BAMLH0A0HYM2
2Y Treasury 2-Year Treasury Constant Maturity Rate Reflects Fed rate expectations over next 2 years. Rising = expected hikes, falling = expected cuts FRED DGS2
5Y Breakeven 5-Year Breakeven Inflation Rate (nominal minus real yield) Market-implied 5-year inflation expectations. Target ~2%, >3% concerning FRED T5YIE
10Y Breakeven 10-Year Breakeven Inflation Rate Long-term inflation expectations. More stable than 5Y, anchored near 2% FRED T10YIE
ISM Manufacturing PMI ISM Purchasing Managers' Index for Manufacturing >50: Expansion
<50: Contraction
Leading indicator - signals economic direction 6-9 months ahead		 DBnomics ISM/pmi/pm

AI & Compute

AI industry metrics including model benchmark performance and compute infrastructure costs.

Metric Definition How to Interpret Source Code
Top LLM Score Average benchmark score of the top-ranked open model on HuggingFace Open LLM Leaderboard Tracks frontier capability of open-source LLMs. Higher = more capable models HuggingFace open-llm-leaderboard
H100 80GB Spot Median spot price for NVIDIA H100 80GB GPUs on Vast.ai Proxy for AI compute scarcity. Higher prices = more demand / less supply Vast.ai H100_80GB
A100 80GB Spot Median spot price for NVIDIA A100 80GB GPUs on Vast.ai Previous-gen flagship. Cheaper than H100 but still production-capable Vast.ai A100_80GB

US Outlook (IMF 2030) Projections

Long-term projections from the IMF World Economic Outlook. These are forecasts through 2030, not current values. Useful for comparing current data against projected trends.

Metric Definition Source Code
GDP Growth (2030f) Projected real GDP growth rate for 2030 IMF NGDP_RPCH/USA
Inflation (2030f) Projected consumer price inflation for 2030 IMF PCPIPCH/USA
Unemployment (2030f) Projected unemployment rate for 2030 IMF LUR/USA
Debt/GDP (2030f) Projected government debt to GDP ratio for 2030 IMF GGXWDG_NGDP/USA
Current Acct (2030f) Projected current account balance as percent of GDP for 2030 IMF BCA_NGDPD/USA

Eurozone

Metric Definition Source Code
EU HICP Inflation Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, annual rate ECB ICP/M.U2.N.000000.4.ANR
ECB Policy Rate ECB Deposit Facility Rate (key policy rate) ECB FM/B.U2.EUR.4F.KR.DFR.LEV
EU GDP Growth Euro area real GDP growth rate (IMF projection) IMF NGDP_RPCH/EUQ
Germany Unemployment Unemployment rate, Germany (proxy for Eurozone) IMF LUR/DEU

China

Metric Definition Source Code
China GDP Growth Real GDP growth rate IMF NGDP_RPCH/CHN
China Inflation Consumer price inflation, annual average IMF PCPIPCH/CHN
China Real Rate Real interest rate (lending rate minus inflation) World Bank FR.INR.RINR/CHN
China Unemployment Surveyed urban unemployment rate IMF LUR/CHN
China Current Account Current account balance as percent of GDP IMF BCA_NGDPD/CHN

Japan

Metric Definition Source Code
Japan GDP QoQ Quarterly GDP growth rate, seasonally adjusted e-Stat 0705020401000060000
Japan Inflation Consumer price inflation, annual average IMF PCPIPCH/JPN
Japan Real Rate Real interest rate World Bank FR.INR.RINR/JPN
Japan Unemployment Seasonally adjusted unemployment rate e-Stat 0301010000020020010
Japan Industrial Prod Industrial Production Index e-Stat 0502070301000090010

Global Markets

Metric Definition Source Ticker
S&P 500 S&P 500 Index, major US equity benchmark Yahoo ^GSPC
Brent Crude Brent crude oil futures price (USD per barrel) Yahoo BZ=F
Gold Gold futures price (USD per troy ounce) Yahoo GC=F
US Dollar Index Trade-weighted USD index (DXY) Yahoo DX-Y.NYB

Crypto

Metric Definition Source ID
Bitcoin Bitcoin price in USD CoinGecko bitcoin
Ethereum Ethereum price in USD CoinGecko ethereum

News Feeds

Feed Definition Source Query
Tech Top 20 stories from HN homepage (algorithmic ranking) HN Firebase topstories
AI/ML Top AI-related stories by popularity HN Algolia query="AI", min_score=50
Startups Top startup-related stories by popularity HN Algolia query="startup", min_score=30

Change Period Labels

Each metric displays a change value with a period label indicating the comparison timeframe:

Label Meaning Comparison Used For
DoD Day-over-Day Current value vs. previous trading day Daily metrics: VIX, credit spreads, Treasury yields, market prices
MoM Month-over-Month Current value vs. same metric last month Monthly metrics: CPI, unemployment, Fed Funds, PMI
QoQ Quarter-over-Quarter Current value vs. same metric last quarter Quarterly metrics: GDP growth, Debt/GDP
YoY Year-over-Year Current value vs. same metric last year Annual metrics: IMF projections, World Bank indicators

Example: +0.15pp MoM means the metric increased by 0.15 percentage points compared to the previous month.

Notes

  1. FRED is the primary source for US economic data, providing actual reported values with monthly/quarterly frequency. Requires a free API key.
  2. IMF DataMapper provides forecasts through 2030. The "US Outlook" section shows these projections for comparison with current FRED data.
  3. ECB Policy Rate shows the Deposit Facility Rate, which is the rate banks receive for overnight deposits with the ECB. This is the key rate used to implement monetary policy since 2022.
  4. World Bank Real Interest Rate is calculated as: lending rate minus inflation (GDP deflator). Data typically lags 1-3 years.
  5. Japan e-Stat data is sourced from official Japanese government statistics (Statistics Bureau, Cabinet Office, METI).
  6. Sparklines display the last 16 data points using Unicode braille patterns for 2x resolution.
  7. Change values show period-over-period change where available (e.g., QoQ for quarterly data, MoM for monthly).

API Endpoints

FRED:       https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/series/observations?series_id={id}&api_key={key}
IMF:        https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/api/v1/{indicator}/{country}
ECB:        https://data-api.ecb.europa.eu/service/data/{dataflow}/{series_key}
World Bank: https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/{country}/indicator/{indicator}
e-Stat:     https://dashboard.e-stat.go.jp/api/1.0/Json/getData?IndicatorCode={code}
Yahoo:      https://query1.finance.yahoo.com/v8/finance/chart/{ticker}
CoinGecko:  https://api.coingecko.com/api/v3/coins/{id}/market_chart
HN:         https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json
Algolia:    https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query={query}
DBnomics:   https://api.db.nomics.world/v22/series/{provider}/{dataset}/{series}
HuggingFace: https://huggingface.co/api/datasets/{dataset}
Vast.ai:    https://console.vast.ai/api/v0/bundles/

FRED API Setup

To enable FRED data fetching:

  1. Get a free API key from fred.stlouisfed.org
  2. Set the environment variable: export FRED_API_KEY=your_key_here
  3. Run the dashboard updater: python -m src.main