The Scan, in the open.
Woodring’s Loop starts with a Scan: a standing read of the signals a plan depends on, run every week instead of every September. This is ours. Every series below is a real series from the Federal Reserve’s FRED database, refreshed daily, paired with the planning assumption it tests. 51 of 51 series reporting, latest reading Nov 11, 2026. No forecasts. Just the record, and what it bears on.
Rates
The price of money. Every financing line in a plan starts here.
Tests: the cost-of-capital line in every 2027 budget, and whichever rate path the plan quietly assumed. Read the signal
Tests: the interest-expense assumption and the date the plan expected the next cut or hike. Read the signal
Tests: the floating-rate line on any credit facility or term loan priced off SOFR plus a spread. Read the signal
Tests: whether the rate path in the plan agrees with the one the bond market is paying for. Read the signal
Tests: the discount rate behind every valuation, capex hurdle and pension assumption in the plan. Read the signal
Tests: your view of where rates and growth go next. Read the signal
Tests: the growth assumption under the revenue line, and whether the plan has a recession case at all. Read the signal
Credit
What it costs a real company to borrow, and whether the market is getting nervous about lending.
Tests: what it costs a solid company to borrow, and the refinancing line for anything maturing in 2027. Read the signal
Tests: the all-in borrowing cost behind the debt-funded part of the capital plan. Read the signal
Tests: how much the market is charging for corporate risk, and whether the plan's financing window is still open. Read the signal
Tests: the assumption that credit stays available to your customers, suppliers and acquirers on current terms. Read the signal
Tests: whether a leveraged buyer, partner or competitor can still raise money on the terms the plan expects. Read the signal
Tests: the assumption that the financing climate the plan was written in holds for the year. Read the signal
Tests: whether the bank line of credit you are counting on will be there at the size you assumed. Read the signal
Labor
Hiring, firing and wages. The timeliest read on whether demand is holding.
Tests: the wage-growth line and the demand forecast, which both lean on the same labor picture. Read the signal
Tests: the top-line demand assumption. Payroll growth is the income that funds the spending in the revenue plan. Read the signal
Tests: your hiring plan and your demand forecast. Read the signal
Tests: whether the labor backdrop the plan assumed is drifting, one week at a time. Read the signal
Tests: how long it takes the people laid off to be rehired, and what that does to spending. Read the signal
Tests: the time-to-hire and cost-to-hire assumptions behind every headcount line. Read the signal
Tests: the merit-increase and labor-cost lines, and the consumer-spending assumption that depends on them. Read the signal
Prices and inputs
Inflation and the cost of fuel. The lines that move a cost-of-goods assumption.
Tests: the price-increase assumption in the revenue plan and the cost-of-living adjustment in the payroll plan. Read the signal
Tests: whether the rate-cut timing the plan leans on is actually earned by the inflation data. Read the signal
Tests: the rate path. If core PCE is not moving toward two percent, the cuts in the plan are an assumption, not a schedule. Read the signal
Tests: the cost-of-goods line and the gross-margin assumption built on it. Read the signal
Tests: the long-run inflation assumption behind any contract, lease or pension that runs past 2030. Read the signal
Tests: energy, freight and input-cost lines. Read the signal
Tests: the consumer-spending assumption, and any fleet or delivery cost line. Read the signal
Tests: the cost of moving anything physical. Read the signal
Activity
How fast the economy is actually moving, from the quarterly scorecard down to the weekly read.
Tests: the macro-growth assumption the whole revenue plan is scaled against. Read the signal
Tests: whether the market-size assumption in the plan still describes the economy you are selling into. Read the signal
Tests: the volume assumption for anyone who makes, moves or supplies physical goods. Read the signal
Tests: the capex cycle assumption, both yours and your customers'. Read the signal
Tests: whether the growth rate the plan assumed for the year is the one the economy is running at this week. Read the signal
Housing
The most rate-sensitive sector, and the one that drags consumer balance sheets with it.
Tests: the volume line for anyone in the building supply chain and the demand line for everyone who sells to a new homeowner. Read the signal
Tests: the 2027 construction-volume assumption before it reaches the starts data. Read the signal
Tests: housing demand and how much room household budgets have. Read the signal
Tests: whether the refinancing wave the plan may be counting on, for the company or its customers, is actually priced to happen. Read the signal
Tests: the consumer-wealth assumption, and the collateral value under any real-estate-backed line. Read the signal
Tests: demand for everything that follows a move: renovation, furniture, moving services, local retail. Read the signal
Markets and liquidity
Volatility, equities and the plumbing underneath them.
Tests: how calm a year you assumed. Read the signal
Tests: the equity-funded part of the capital plan, the 401(k) line in consumer confidence, and the exit assumptions of anyone planning a sale. Read the signal
Tests: the liquidity assumption behind any plan that depends on easy capital markets. Read the signal
Tests: the inflation and demand assumptions at once, because both run on how much money is in the system. Read the signal
Consumer
Mood and spending. The revenue line of most plans, one step removed.
Tests: the discretionary-spending assumption in the consumer revenue line. Read the signal
Tests: the consumer-demand line, in the same nominal terms most revenue plans are written in. Read the signal
Tests: the top-line demand assumption for anyone whose end customer is a household. Read the signal
Tests: the big-ticket consumer assumption and the credit-availability assumption under it. Read the signal
Trade and the dollar
The exchange rate and the trade balance. Where an imported-cost assumption lives.
Tests: the FX line in any plan with overseas revenue, imported inputs or foreign competitors. Read the signal
Tests: the translation rate behind any European revenue, cost or supplier line. Read the signal
Tests: the trade-policy assumption, and whether the import-cost line survives the year's tariff decisions. Read the signal
Source: FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis · refreshed daily · 1-month move compares the latest reading to the one nearest 30 days earlier · bp = basis points
A library is not a plan. The Scan only earns its keep when a signal is tied to a decision somebody owns: which assumption it tests, what reading would break it, and who re-argues the plan when it does. That is the rest of the Loop: Story, Stake, Steer. Prediction markets are the other half of the Scan, and they live on the Market Layer.
Get the read on what moved, once a month.
The library updates itself. The Signal Layer is the human read: which of these moved, which planning assumptions it tests, and how a continuous-planning team would respond. One email a month. Unsubscribe in one click.