Economic Surprise Index

Citi ESI Methodology: For each release, surprise = actual − consensus. Normalised by trailing 3-year standard deviation of surprises → surprise in standard deviations. Rolling index = bounded exponential moving average (λ=0.92, ~3-month window) of impact-weighted normalised surprises. Impact weights: High=1.0, Medium=0.6, Low=0.3. Index bounded to [−100, +100]. Trend = IMPROVING when 4-week EMA > 8-week EMA.

Data note: No actuals/consensus source is connected. The API returns 503 and this page shows the refusal reason instead of an index.