World market clock

Every spike is a stock index, standing on the city its exchange is in. Its height is the index's surprise: the 24-hour move divided by its own 20-day volatility, in standard deviations, which is the one figure that compares one market's day with another's. Its colour is the direction, and every label also carries ▲ or ▼ and a signed number. A short dashed stub has no measured surprise, which means unknown, not calm. The numerator is a trailing 24 hours while the denominator is close-to-close over whole days, so mid-session the reading runs slightly tame.

Every ring is a currency, on its central bank. Its size is the currency's strength: the average signed move across every pair it trades in over 24 hours. That is a percentage, not a standard deviation, so a ring and a spike are never compared with each other. A currency measured in only one pair is only as representative as that pair.

Crypto has no exchange and no home city, so it orbits, sized by its own surprise. A gold ◆ is a high-impact economic release, on the central bank of the currency it is about: it breathes while it is due and ripples for twelve hours after it is released. The globe says when a release is due, never what it printed.

The night side is drawn where the night really is at this moment. An exchange that is open pulses at its foot. Open means its scheduled regular session in local time on a weekday; public holidays and half days are not known here, so a pulsing exchange on a holiday is closed.

Press play to replay the last 24 hours an hour at a time. The sun moves, the globe turns with it, and each spike rises and falls with its market's move from the start of the window, measured against its own volatility. The replay is built from hourly closes, so its last hour and the live figure agree closely but not to the decimal.