About Read the Tape

Read the Tape measures what financial media argues about twelve assets — which themes drive coverage, which direction each argument leans, and how that shifts day to day.

What this is

Every figure on this site describes published articles, not markets. When we report that coverage of an asset is 62% bearish, that is a measurement of the arguments being published — not a forecast of the price, and not advice. The distinction is the whole product: sentiment is how coverage sounds, balance is what the arguments say, and the two regularly disagree.

Roughly 250 articles a day are read by language models that identify each article's themes, the direction of its argument, and its tone. Articles making the same argument are clustered into recurring narratives, so a theme can be tracked across outlets and over time. The full process, including its failure modes, is written up in our methodology.

Who publishes it

Read the Tape is built and published by Spearman Analytics. Questions, corrections and disagreements are welcome and are read by a person: tom@spearman.cc.

We post daily on X as @readthetape_ai.

What we don't do

We do not forecast prices, publish trade recommendations, or offer investment advice. We do not accept payment to feature a theme, an asset or an outlet. The analysis is AI-generated and imperfect — it can misread sarcasm, satire or context, and it can miscategorise a theme. Where coverage is too thin to say anything honest, we show a gap rather than a number.

If you find something wrong, please tell us. Corrections are the fastest way this gets better.