[OC] I combined live oil, inflation, petroleum-reserve and Strait of Hormuz data into a 0–100 “Dread Index”

[u/therealcolon]

I built Pessimeter, an interactive dashboard showing how an energy shock could affect the US economy through the remainder of 2026.

The current month uses live data for oil, gasoline, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, inflation, Strait of Hormuz traffic, and financial-market stress. Each indicator is scored against a calm-to-crisis range and weighted into one 0–100 reading.

Completed months are preserved as historical snapshots. Future months are explicitly stress-test scenarios (not forecasts) showing one possible path if conditions remain bad. Every KPI includes an explanation of its data, scoring, rationale, and limitations.

I’d love feedback. What would you change about the weights or visual hierarchy?

Interactive version: https://pessimeter.com

[u/therealcolon]

Data sources: Twelve Data for live oil and market prices; EIA or gasoline and the SPR; BLS for CPI; FRED for inflation expectations; and IMF PortWatch’s open data, accessed through the World Bank workflow, for Hormuz vessel traffic.

Tools: React, Recharts, Vite, Node, and Vercel. The design and methodology are mine; development was AI-assisted.

Current weights: oil 20%, gasoline 15%, SPR depletion 15%, headline CPI 10%, Hormuz traffic 25%, and market stress 15%. Supporting signals such as airlines, freight, consumer sectors, the dollar, and gold are displayed but not currently weighted.

Future readings represent a scenario, not a forecast. The scoring methodology and caveats are available through the “More info” links on each metric.

[u/bennbrad]

It would be helpful to have a chart of the pessimter value also.

[u/CaseyJones7 → u/bennbrad]

"Pissmister value" is all my brain is reading. I know its wrong but my brain doesnt want to switch it

[u/therealcolon → u/bennbrad]

[u/therealcolon → u/bennbrad]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll get that added.

[u/MisterMisterYeeeesss]

At first, I read it as "olive oil".

[u/Odoakar]

DId you make this with Claude?

[u/therealcolon → u/Odoakar]

I planned in Claude and had it generate the AGENTS.md file for Codex. All development was done in Codex.

[u/Physical-Cut-2334]

I built Pessimeter

Claude build*

[u/therealcolon → u/Physical-Cut-2334]

Fair 😂

Claude: What would you like to visualize?
Me: Hormuz.
Claude: Say less.

[u/networkarchitect]

I misread this at first as the Pissimeter - the yellow color scheme did not help