Free, descriptive cross-asset stress composites — the OFR Financial Stress Index, the Chicago Fed NFCI, and the ECB CISS — each z-scored vs its own history so they are comparable on one 'stress in σ' scale.
How to read Read where cross-asset financial stress sits right now vs its own history. The issuers themselves frame these as COINCIDENT (descriptive) indicators.
DESCRIPTIVE coincident indicators (the Chicago Fed explicitly calls the NFCI 'primarily descriptive rather than predictive'). The FSI→economic-activity Granger result is a property of the index's relationship to a separate variable, NOT a forecast made by the level.