A 20K beat on Initial Jobless Claims is a long way from consensus. A 20K beat on Nonfarm Payrolls is rounding error. A headline that only says beat or miss cannot separate the two, so Helious scores every US economic print in σ units of that series' own typical surprise. The size of a surprise then means the same thing whichever release you are looking at.
1σ is the typical distance between the actual print and the consensus forecast for that series, worked out over roughly a decade of history. For Nonfarm Payrolls that is about ±72K. For CPI MoM it is about ±0.08pp, and for jobless claims about ±14K. Helious ships those historical values for about 90 US series. Once it has captured twelve prints of a series itself it switches to a rolling standard deviation of the surprises it has actually seen.
When the actual lands, Helious divides the surprise by σ: (actual − consensus) ÷ σ. The cutoffs are fixed. Under 0.5σ the print reads IN LINE. From 0.5 to 1σ it is a SLIGHT BEAT or SLIGHT MISS, from 1 to 2σ a BEAT or MISS, and at 2σ or beyond a MAJOR BEAT or MAJOR MISS, which also picks up a flame on its feed card. The signed z, +3.3σ say, sits on the calendar row and on the feed release card, so every surprise reads in the same units whichever series printed it.
Expand any data row and the σ bar shows what the market expects before the print arrives. The track runs from −2σ to +2σ. The shaded blue box is the ±1σ zone and the gold EST marker is consensus. If no consensus has published yet, the grey PRIOR value stands in as the reference and the header says so. Once the actual lands, its marker draws green above the reference and red below. Anything beyond ±2σ pins to the edge of the track, which is why the tiles above it carry the true magnitude. That tile row spells out the exact levels at −2σ, −1σ, Est, +1σ and +2σ in the release's own units.
σ measures size. Which way a print cuts depends on what the series is, and each release carries its own mapping, printed above the bar. On inflation series a higher print is bearish bonds, meaning yields up. On labour-slack series like claims or the unemployment rate a higher print is bullish bonds. On growth series a higher print is bearish bonds and usually bullish equities. The feed release card puts the two together for its Bonds / Equities read: the family mapping gives the sign, the z-score gives the magnitude. The momentum score runs off the same signal.
On CPI or payrolls day the question is not whether it beat. It is by how much, and σ is the unit the market actually prices that in. A 2σ surprise moves the market almost by definition: it is twice the typical miss, and desks are positioned for the typical miss. The bands are worth reading before the print too. If the whole recent range of outcomes sits inside ±1σ, consensus is tight and even a small deviation will move prices. A series that routinely prints 1.5σ from consensus needs a bigger shock to matter. Helious races three capture paths to put the actual on the row within seconds. See how the feed captures data.
