The Citigroup Surprise Index for the US measures macroeconomic data vs. expectations.  When the economic data is coming in much better than expected you’ll see a strongly positive number for the Surprise Index and a strongly negative number for much worse-than-expected data. Here is the Surprise Index for the US over the past three years:   US Citigroup Surprise Index last three years Courtesy of Bloomberg Click to enlarge   I’ve circled in red the readings in January in 2010 2011 and 2012 for a clean seasonal comparison. The current January reading is the same as January 2010 and ...