How to use the Source Agreement matrix
What the source agreement matrix at /trends/media shows, how the consensus percentage is calculated, and how traders read high-agreement versus low-agreement narratives differently.
Source agreement counts how many tier-1 outlets are covering the same narrative. High agreement (5+ of 8) means consensus. Low agreement (1-2) means an early or contested story. Both have trades attached.
The source agreement matrix shows, for each live market narrative, which of the eight tier-1 outlets we track has filed coverage on it. The outlets are Bloomberg, Reuters, FT, WSJ, CNBC, Axios, MarketWatch and Yahoo. The matrix is at /trends/media.
The consensus column is a simple fraction: how many of those 8 outlets have at least one published wire on the narrative in our index. A consensus of 100% (8/8) means every tier-1 desk is writing the same story. A consensus of 25% (2/8) means it is early, or contested, or both.
How to use it: high-consensus narratives (>60%) are usually fully priced in. The trade is rarely in being long the story — it is in being on the right side of the inevitable mean-revert when the narrative goes stale. Watch for the velocity to peak; when it starts dropping while consensus is still high, you are at the top of the curve.
Low-consensus narratives (<40%) are where the asymmetric trades live. If only Bloomberg and FT are covering a story but the mention velocity is exploding on social, you have a window of 24-72 hours before the rest of the wires catch up and the move becomes consensus. The classic example: the August 2024 yen-carry unwind started as a Reuters Japan story before any English-language desk was paying attention.
The matrix also exposes editorial divergence. When two tier-1 outlets land on the same story but our sentiment data shows they disagree on direction (Bloomberg bullish, FT bearish), that is information. Divergence at the top of the stack rarely lasts; one of them will move within a few days.
People also ask
Why these 8 outlets and not more?
Does first-publish (which outlet broke it) matter?
How often does the matrix update?
More from Learn
- How to read a market narrative
A practical breakdown of what makes a market narrative useful, how to spot the dominant one early, and which signals tell you when a narrative is about to flip.
- How to interpret the VIX
What the VIX actually measures, how to read its level vs realised volatility, the regimes that matter, and why the slope of the VIX curve often tells you more than the spot number.
- How traders use the Fear & Greed index
What goes into a Fear & Greed composite, why our build uses VIX (50%), S&P daily change (30%) and BTC (20%), and how to act on extreme readings without becoming a permabear or permabull.
- What is an options chain and how to read one
The basic anatomy of an options chain, what each column means (bid, ask, mark, IV, OI, volume, delta), and how to spot the strikes where positioning is concentrated.