US Nasdaq market sentiment shown as one number from 0 to 100. A car-style speedometer needle tells you at a glance whether the market is closer to fear or greed, alongside the six indicators behind the score and the past year of history.
The bands are 0–24 Extreme Fear, 25–44 Fear, 45–55 Neutral, 56–74 Greed and 75–100 Extreme Greed. Extreme Fear means investors are unusually frightened; Extreme Greed means the market is showing signs of overheating.
The six inputs are 6-month momentum (position versus the 125-day moving average), 1-month trend (versus the 20-day moving average), position within the 52-week range, realized 20-day volatility, 14-day RSI, and the share of up days over the last 20 sessions. Each is rescaled to 0–100 and then simply averaged into the final score.
The 52-week position, RSI and share of up days are already bounded 0–100 and are used directly. Momentum and volatility have no natural bounds, so they are converted into a percentile against their own trailing one-year distribution — which lets the index recalibrate itself as market regimes change instead of relying on thresholds that go stale.
Data comes from Nasdaq 100 daily closing prices. The page fetches recent daily bars in your browser and computes the index there; if that request fails it falls back to Nasdaq 100 index data bundled at deploy time. The source line under the score always says which one was used.
This is not the CNN Fear & Greed Index — the methodology differs, so the numbers will not match. It is a reference indicator computed from public closing prices, not investment advice or a trading signal.
A fear and greed index says nothing about where prices go next. It compresses how stretched or how depressed the market currently looks relative to its own recent behaviour.
Its usefulness is as a mirror: when the reading is extreme, it is worth pausing to notice whether your own decision points the same way the crowd's does.
Even used as a contrarian signal it will not time anything. Markets routinely climb for months from extreme greed. "Overheated" and "about to fall" are different statements.
Six-month momentum: how far the index sits from its 125-day moving average — position relative to the longer trend.
One-month trend: position relative to the 20-day moving average, capturing the last month's direction.
Position within the 52-week range: where today sits between the year's high and low. This naturally falls on a 0–100 scale.
Twenty-day realised volatility: the standard deviation of recent daily returns. Rising volatility pushes the reading toward fear.
Fourteen-day RSI: the ratio of gains to losses, conventionally read as overbought above 70 and oversold below 30.
Share of up days in the last twenty sessions: how often the market rose, rather than by how much.
The inputs have incompatible units, so each is converted to 0–100 and the six are averaged with equal weight.
The 52-week position, RSI and up-day share already sit on 0–100 and are used directly.
Momentum and volatility are unbounded — whether "8% above the moving average" is a lot depends on the regime. They are therefore converted to a percentile against the last year's distribution: the score is the share of the past year's days that read lower than today.
That choice makes the index self-recalibrating. After a long stretch of low volatility, what counts as "high volatility" adjusts downward on its own. Fixed thresholds go stale within a few years; percentiles do not.
0–24 extreme fear · 25–44 fear · 45–55 neutral · 56–74 greed · 75–100 extreme greed.
Neutral carries the least information, because it often means the inputs are pointing in opposite directions and cancelling out. When the reading lands there, the six component bars say more than the headline number.
Direction frequently matters more than level. Forty-five reached on the way up from 30 describes a very different mood from 45 reached on the way down from 60 — which is why the prior day, week, month and year are shown alongside.
CNN's Fear & Greed Index tracks the S&P 500 using seven inputs: market momentum, stock price strength, stock price breadth, put/call ratio, junk bond demand, market volatility (VIX) and safe-haven demand.
This index tracks the Nasdaq 100 using six price and volatility inputs. It uses no options data, no credit spreads and no fund flows, because it is built only from data a browser can fetch for free.
The two generally move together but rarely agree on a number. The Nasdaq's heavier technology weighting also makes it swing more than the S&P 500.
The index is computed from daily closing prices, so it does not move intraday — it updates once the US session has closed and the close is final.
Nothing changes over weekends or US market holidays.
The browser fetches the latest daily bars directly; if that request fails, it falls back to a snapshot baked in at build time from FRED's Nasdaq 100 series, in which case the data may be several days old.
It is a single 0–100 reading of whether stock market investors are leaning toward fear or toward greed. Closer to 0 means investors are frightened and avoiding risk; closer to 100 means they are piling into risk, which can signal overheating. Around 50 is considered neutral.
Open this page and the current reading — computed from the most recent trading day's close — appears immediately as a gauge needle and a large number, together with its band name (Extreme Fear, Fear, Neutral, Greed or Extreme Greed).
No. CNN's index uses its own inputs such as put/call ratios, junk bond spreads and market breadth, and it publishes no public API. This page builds an independent index from Nasdaq 100 daily closes alone. The two usually move in the same direction, but the numbers will not match.
Not necessarily. Rebounds have often followed Extreme Fear readings, but fear has also deepened into longer declines. This is a reference gauge of where sentiment sits, not a buy or sell signal — investment decisions and their outcomes are your own responsibility.
It is based on daily closes, so the value changes once a day after the US market closes and the data lands. During the session you see the reading from the previous close. Fetched data is cached for 30 minutes so reloading does not re-request it.
The VIX measures only expected 30-day volatility priced into options. This index folds volatility together with momentum, trend, 52-week range position, RSI and the share of up days, so it describes overall sentiment on a 0–100 scale rather than volatility alone.
The Nasdaq 100 (NDX / QQQ). Its 100 large, tech-heavy constituents represent US growth-stock sentiment well, and reliable daily closing data is available for it.
What this tool bases its numbers on, and how far those numbers go.
From Nasdaq 100 daily closes: position vs the 125-day and 20-day moving averages, position in the 52-week range, 20-day realised volatility, 14-day RSI, and the share of up days over 20 sessions. Each is mapped to 0–100 and averaged equally; unbounded inputs (momentum, volatility) are mapped by percentile against the last year.Components of 40, 55, 62, 30, 58 and 45 give (40+55+62+30+58+45) ÷ 6 = 48.3, which falls in the neutral band.