Recession Mentions per Call (Discourse)

## What this measures

Mean count of recession / slowdown / consumer-weakness mentions per document, trailing 90 days.

## Why it matters

Companies say the word before economists do. Feeds The Hesitation Index.

## How to read it

A rise means management teams are talking more about recession, slowdowns, consumer weakness or soft patches in their prepared remarks and Q&A. Compare the current level to prior periods to see whether concern is climbing or fading. Because the measure is per document, it adjusts for the total volume of calls.

## What it does not say

It does not capture whether executives think a recession is likely or imminent, only that they are using the words. It does not distinguish between a CEO predicting trouble and an analyst asking a question.

## Source

Palanor derives this series from transcripts of public-company earnings calls and presentations. The discourse source aggregates mentions across all available transcripts on a trailing ninety-day basis.

## Revision — 2026-09-26

Universe updated to current S&P 500 constituents (8 out, 3 in). Out: Builders FirstSource, Molson Coors and The Trade Desk, which left the index on 21 September 2026; Electronic Arts, which was taken private and left on 5 August 2026; and MongoDB, Cloudflare, Snowflake and Zoom, which were never members and had been included in error since May 2026. In: Bloom Energy, Everpure and Illumina, which joined on 21 September 2026. Membership now comes from a dated constituent list refreshed monthly. The corrected list applies from 26 September 2026. Readings before that date are unchanged.