Overview
The World Tension Score is a composite 0–100 index of geopolitical stress and its likely inflationary impact on the global economy. It is calculated in two parts: a raw signal score derived from five real-time data signals, and an event memory adjustment that ensures major events leave a lasting imprint on the score even after they fade from the daily news cycle.
Final Score = Raw Score + Event Memory Boost (scaled by raw score)
Tier 1 — World Tension Score: five core signals
The composite 0–100 World Tension Score is calculated from five weighted signals. These signals measure the observable environment from different angles — no single signal can be manipulated or faked without the others catching it.
1. Conflict Index
Weight: 25%Measures active armed conflict intensity worldwide. Derived from NLP keyword analysis of headlines across 12 RSS news feeds: Reuters, BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Google News, Yahoo Finance, NPR, and MarketWatch. Articles are scanned for fear-signal words (war, invasion, attack, missile, airstrike, sanctions, blockade, nuclear) and calm-signal words (ceasefire, peace, agreement, deal, recovery). The ratio of fear-to-calm signals per article, weighted by article count, produces the conflict score.
Formula: fear_per_article normalized against 0.08 (very calm) to 1.20 (crisis level), minus calm penalty. Calibrated so 0.30 fear/article ≈ 45, 0.80 fear/article ≈ 75.
2. Energy Stress
Weight: 20%Composite of Brent crude oil price and gold price (XAU/USD). Oil is the primary inflation transmission mechanism — every $10/barrel increase in oil historically adds ~0.3% to headline CPI within 3 months. Gold above $2,000/oz signals safe-haven demand and reflects investor fear of instability. Both prices are fetched in real-time from Yahoo Finance and Alpha Vantage.
Oil normalization: $55 = 0, $115 = 100 · Gold normalization: $1,800 = 0, $5,500 = 100 · Combined: (Oil × 60%) + (Gold × 40%)
3. Trade Disruption
Weight: 20%Approximates disruption to global trade flows, supply chains, and shipping routes. Computed as a weighted blend of the conflict score (55%) and media sentiment score (45%). This reflects the empirical relationship where active conflict is the dominant driver of supply chain disruption, while media coverage captures secondary signals like sanctions, tariffs, and port closures that conflict data may not capture directly.
Formula: (Conflict score × 55%) + (Media score × 45%)
4. Financial Stress
Weight: 20%Three-component composite using real-time market data from the Federal Reserve FRED database and Yahoo Finance. The US 10-year Treasury yield reflects inflation expectations built into bond markets. The VIX (CBOE Volatility Index) measures equity market fear and uncertainty. The US Dollar Index (DXY) captures currency stress — both extreme dollar strength (capital flight to safety) and extreme weakness (inflation expectations) signal elevated tension.
Yield normalization: 1.5% = 0, 5.5% = 100 · VIX normalization: 10 = 0, 45 = 100 · DXY stress: abs(DXY−100) normalized 0–18 · Combined: (Yield × 45%) + (VIX × 40%) + (DXY × 15%)
5. Media Sentiment
Weight: 15%Standalone media fear score derived from the same 12 RSS news feeds used by the conflict signal, but measured independently. While the conflict signal counts geopolitical fear words specifically, media sentiment measures the overall ratio of fear to calm language across all coverage — including financial crisis language, humanitarian crises, and political instability that may not be captured by the conflict keyword set.
Fear keywords (weighted): war, attack, crisis, collapse, sanctions, nuclear, invasion, recession, shock, catastrophic · Calm keywords: ceasefire, peace, deal, recovery, surplus, agreement, growth
Event memory — variable half-life decay
A key limitation of pure daily-signal scoring is that major events can disappear from a score overnight when they fade from the news cycle — even though their real-world impact persists for weeks or months. The Russia-Ukraine invasion in 2022 did not stop affecting global energy and food prices after it fell off the front page.
To address this, every scored event is classified and stored in an event memory register with a variable half-life decay. The half-life determines how slowly the event's contribution to the score decays over time. A war has a 60-day half-life — its contribution halves every 60 days, meaning it still contributes meaningfully months later. A single drone strike has a 4-day half-life and fades within two weeks.
| Category | Examples | Half-life | Initial boost | Day 30 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| War / Invasion | Russia invades Ukraine, US-Iran war, nuclear threat | 60 days | +18 pts | +12.7 |
| Major Crisis | Record drone attack, national energy emergency, oil above $120 | 21 days | +13 pts | +5.9 |
| Escalation | Ground offensive, major sanctions, Hormuz threatened, oil above $100 | 10 days | +7 pts | +1.2 |
| Incident | Drone attack, border incident, pipeline disruption | 4 days | +4 pts | 0 |
Decay formula: boost(t) = initial_impact × 0.5^(days_elapsed / half_life) · Events expire when their contribution drops below 0.5 pts. Total event memory boost is capped based on raw score to prevent artificial inflation: if raw score ≥ 80, maximum boost = +8 pts; if raw score 68–79, maximum = +14 pts.
Score zones and historical context
Calm
Low inflationary pressure. Safe-haven demand minimal. Risk assets typically perform well. Historical examples: 2015–2017 relative stability, mid-2019.
Stable
Background geopolitical noise. Normal market conditions. Some trade friction or diplomatic tension but no systemic stress.
Moderate
Elevated but contained stress. Rising safe-haven demand. Supply chain friction visible. Historical examples: 2018 US-China trade war, 2019 Gulf tensions.
High Tension
Multiple stress signals active simultaneously. Gold and oil elevated. Equity volatility rising. Historical examples: 2022 Ukraine invasion early phase, 2023 Middle East conflict.
Extreme Fear
Crisis-level conditions. All five signals simultaneously elevated. Maximum safe-haven demand. Historical examples: early 2022 Ukraine invasion peak, 2008 financial crisis, 2020 COVID shock.
Update schedule
Data sources
| Source | Data | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| Federal Reserve (FRED) | US 10-year Treasury yield (DGS10) | Daily |
| Yahoo Finance | Gold (GC=F), Oil (BZ=F), Silver (SI=F), VIX (^VIX), DXY, 10Y Yield (^TNX) | Real-time |
| Alpha Vantage | Gold spot price (XAU/USD) — primary source | Real-time |
| CoinGecko | BTC, ETH prices and 24h change, BTC dominance | Every 5 min |
| RSS Feeds (12 sources) | Reuters, BBC, Al Jazeera, Guardian, Google News, Yahoo Finance News, NPR, MarketWatch | Every 15 min |
What this model does not measure
Transparency about limitations is how you tell a serious model from a marketing exercise. Here is what the WTM explicitly cannot do:
What WTM is good for: General awareness of geopolitical stress trends · Understanding which factors are driving inflation risk · Identifying when the global environment is shifting from stable to stressed · A consistent, daily-updated baseline signal that contextualises news.
Backtesting & validation
Applied our methodology retroactively to historical periods. Not a guarantee of future accuracy.
| Period | Est. WTM Score | What followed (90 days) | Signal quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| COVID shock — Mar 2020 | 82 | Oil crashed to negative. Supply chains collapsed. Central banks cut to zero. Global recession confirmed Q2 2020. | ✓ Strong |
| Russia-Ukraine invasion — Feb 2022 | 85 | European gas +300%. Global food inflation hit 40-year high. CPI peaked above 9% in US, 11% in UK. Equity markets fell 20%+. | ✓ Strong |
| Red Sea / Houthi crisis — Jan 2024 | 71 | Shipping costs +150%. Container freight rates spiked. Supply chain delays extended 2–3 weeks for Asia-Europe routes. Modest inflation uptick. | ~ Moderate |
| US tariff escalation — Apr 2025 | 74 | Import prices rose 8–14% for affected categories. GDP growth revised down. Supply chain diversification accelerated. | ~ Moderate |
| US-Israel-Iran war — Mar 2026 | 93–98 | Oil above $112. Gold at record $4,579. Energy emergencies declared across Asia. IEA warns worst shock since 1973. Ongoing at time of publication. | ⟳ Active |
Methodology note: Scores above 70 preceded meaningful inflationary events in all backtested cases. The model's false positive rate is unknown — we have not yet observed a score above 70 that was not followed by measurable economic impact. The model does not capture slow-burn deterioration well (scores below 60 can precede recessions when structural factors accumulate over years).
Academic context & related work
The WTM draws conceptually on established academic approaches to measuring geopolitical and economic risk:
Open data
The full WTM score history is published as an open dataset. You can download all daily scores, sub-factor values, and event memory data in JSON format:
Data is licensed under CC BY 4.0 — free to use with attribution. Cite as: WorldTensionMeter (2026). Daily Geopolitical Stress & Inflation Pressure Index. worldtensionmeter.com/api/scores.json
Tier 2 — Five dedicated inflation-channel indexes
Each Tier 2 index tracks a specific pathway through which geopolitical stress transmits into inflation. They are independent of the World Tension Score formula — not inputs to it — but they correlate strongly with the core score and provide diagnostic granularity for analysts and researchers.
🌾 Food Security & Inflation Index
Live index →Tracks global food commodity stress as a leading inflation indicator. Inputs: CME wheat futures (ZW), CME corn futures (ZC), CME rough rice futures (ZR). Each commodity is scored 0–100 based on its 52-week percentile range. The composite score is a simple average of the three commodity scores. Food price spikes have a 30–90 day lag to consumer CPI depending on supply chain length.
Data: Yahoo Finance futures tickers (ZW=F, ZC=F, ZR=F) · Updated twice daily
Inflation lag: 30–90 days to consumer CPI
💱 Currency Stress Index
Live index →Measures stress in the global foreign exchange system — a key channel through which geopolitical events affect import prices and inflation. Inputs: DXY (US Dollar Index), EUR/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CNY, GBP/USD. Each pair is scored based on deviation from 52-week average. Extreme DXY strength signals capital flight to safety; extreme weakness signals inflation expectations. EM currency pressure (USD/CNY, USD/JPY) signals regional stress.
Data: Yahoo Finance (DX-Y.NYB, EURUSD=X, JPYUSD=X, CNYUSD=X, GBPUSD=X) · Updated every 5 minutes
Inflation lag: Near-immediate for import prices (2–4 weeks to CPI)
🚢 Global Shipping Stress Index
Live index →Measures disruption to global trade routes and supply chains — the mechanism by which conflict and sanctions transmit into consumer goods inflation. Inputs: Baltic Dry Index (BDI) as the primary dry bulk shipping signal, and Brent crude oil price as an energy cost proxy for container and tanker shipping. BDI is scored using its 52-week percentile; oil cost pressure adds to the composite. Red Sea disruption (Hormuz blockage risk) is captured indirectly through the oil and BDI signals.
Data: Yahoo Finance (BDI via ^BDI, BZ=F for Brent) · Updated twice daily
Inflation lag: 60–120 days (shipping → port → warehouse → retail shelf)
🚫 Sanctions Intensity Tracker
Live tracker →Sanctions are a primary geopolitical inflation mechanism — they restrict commodity supply, redirect trade flows, and weaponise the US dollar. This index scores current sanctions intensity through two observable market signals: oil price level (Brent crude above $70/barrel indicates constrained supply) and DXY level (dollar above 100 indicates weaponisation pressure on sanctioned economies). The sanctioned country count provides structural context.
Data: Yahoo Finance (BZ=F, DX-Y.NYB) · Updated twice daily
Context: Currently tracking 15 sanctioned country regimes (Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Belarus, Myanmar + others)
⚡ Energy Security Index
Live index →Energy price stress is the fastest and most direct transmission channel from geopolitics to consumer inflation. Every $10/barrel increase in Brent crude adds approximately 0.3% to headline CPI within 3 months. This index tracks: Brent crude price (scored against 52-week range), natural gas price (Henry Hub, scored against 52-week range), oil price volatility (30-day % swing), and the gold-oil ratio (high ratio signals fear premium over energy demand). All four components combine into a composite energy stress score.
Data: Yahoo Finance (BZ=F for Brent, NG=F for Henry Hub) · Updated every 5 minutes
Inflation lag: 30–90 days · Most direct transmission channel of all five Tier 2 indexes
Model version history
This is an evolving research project. Each version adds data sources, improves weighting, or fixes known limitations.