Bank lending standards
The Fed's Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey asks bank credit officers a simple question each quarter: are you tightening or easing lending standards? It's a survey — opinion, not transaction data — but the people answering are the ones who decide whether the loan gets made.
Why it leads
Banks tighten standards *before* loan volumes fall: standards shift with the outlook, volumes follow months later when credit actually dries up. SLOOS tightening waves preceded the 1990, 2001, 2008, and 2020 recessions — and the 2023 tightening that famously didn't produce one.
Strengths and blind spots
The survey captures intent — supply-side restriction that aggregates poorly into any market price. Its blind spot is that it's self-reported and qualitative; strong tightening readings resolved into recessions in some cycles (2008) and into nothing in others (2023), which is why it shares the credit block with market-priced signals.