How the CEO Barometer works
The CEO Barometer measures how confidently the CEOs of listed companies talk about their business, in one index from 0 to 100.
It is built from the CEO reviews in companies’ own earnings releases, read with AI assistance and Clarifo Intelligence, and every source is a public report.
The tone of the CEO’s own words
Each CEO review is read on six themes. Together they say whether management sounds more or less confident than usual, not whether the company did well.
- Confidence
- How sure management sounds about the business and its direction.
- Demand
- How the CEO describes customer demand and the order book.
- Profitability
- How the CEO talks about margins, costs and earnings.
- Growth ambition
- Whether the review is about expanding or about holding ground.
- Directness
- Plain statements rather than heavy hedging and caveats.
- Ownership
- Owning the results rather than blaming markets, weather or the economy.
From the CEO review to the index
The source is the company’s own report
The CEO review in each interim and annual report; for US companies, management’s letter to shareholders in the earnings release. Nothing is taken from news or social media.
Read with AI assistance
Clarifo Intelligence reads each review and scores the six themes. Every company is scored on all six, so leaving out the risks does not lift the index.
Checked, and checked again
Quotes shown with a score are verified word for word against the original report. A second, independent reading of the same text flags any score where the two disagree.
Locked once a period is complete
A period stays provisional while companies are still reporting, then it is confirmed. The method itself is versioned: any change is published as a new version, not applied silently.
A scale from 0 to 100
57–100
Positive
Clearly more confident than the long-run average.
28–56
Neutral
Around the usual tone of a CEO review.
0–27
Negative
Clearly more cautious than usual.
50 is the average tone of Nordic companies in 2020–2023. CEO reviews are upbeat by nature, so the barometer measures whether they are more or less upbeat than usual. US shareholder letters are more upbeat still as a genre, so US scores are adjusted down to keep markets comparable.
Frequently asked questions
Is the CEO Barometer an investment recommendation?
No. It describes how CEOs talk about their business. It does not forecast share prices or recommend buying or selling anything.
Does a high index mean the company is doing well?
Not necessarily. The index measures tone, not results. A confident review in a weak quarter, or a cautious one in a strong quarter, is exactly what the barometer is built to show.
Which companies are included?
Listed companies on Nasdaq Helsinki, Stockholm and Copenhagen, and S&P 500 companies in the United States, as they publish their reports.
How often is it updated?
Every reporting period. New reports are added as companies publish them, and the period is confirmed once reporting is complete.
Why use AI to read the reviews?
Hundreds of CEO reviews are published in the same few weeks. AI assistance reads them all the same way, and the word-for-word quote checks and the second reading keep the scores tied to what the CEO actually wrote.
See the latest barometer.
Market, sector and company level, with the quotes behind the scores.
Open the CEO Barometer