With a steady stream of interest rates and retail sales, unemployment rates and earnings, foreclosures, P/E ratios and readings of the purchasing managers index, trying to figure out where the markets might be headed often leaves investors feeling suffocated, not informed.

Even if you are able to synthesize the endless data stream into a coherent outlook, understanding how any one economic scenario -- like stagflation, a European debt default or even continuing global growth -- could affect an industry is leap of faith. Sophisticated institutional investors use scenario modeling to guess how markets are likely to move. Now, a new start up aims to bring that same sort of evaluation to the average Joe.

HiddenLevers uses statistical analysis to map how various economic factors, called levers, affect particular industries and individual stocks. Using inputs as disparate as retail sales and tanker rates, the platform can assess how any number of what if scenarios might affect the market and your own portfolio.

For example, ask the HiddenLevers screener which stocks are likely to outperform amid rising oil prices, and crowd favorites like BP Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust and Exxon Mobil are ranked lower than EOG Resources, Linn Energy or even FMC Technologies, an equipment and services concern. The analysis points you towards the stocks most significantly impacted by the factors you select.

You can also study which stocks would likely rise if the economic lever falls. For example, if auto sales drop, HiddenLevers s model suggests automotive part stores like Pep Boys, Advance Auto Parts and US Auto Parts Network would sharply gain.

Most interesting is the platform s scenario modeling, which combines the various economic levers to predict the best and worst performing investments should any number of storylines play out.

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A visualization of HiddenLevers's patent-pending approach to scenario analysis Source: HiddenLevers

The Buttons Behind the Levers



grocery stores meat producers Smithfield Foods Bridgeford Food Regal Entertainment Carmike Cinemas Lennar Corporation Ryland Group

A double-dip recession would boost air services companies like Bristow Group, Atlas Air and rubber manufacturers like Goodyear Tire and Cooper Tire & Rubber. REITs and advertising agencies would get hit the hardest.

A sustained decline in health-care costs would benefit networking companies like Juniper Networks and Cisco Systems, along with credit-related financials like Discover Financial, Capital One and Orix. Medical equipment makers like ResMed, hospitals like Community Health Systems and home health-care names like Amedisys would suffer.

You can also see how well any of your own holdings would likely perform under any of these conditions,. The system considers a wide variety of inputs, including steel prices, stock returns and wireless sales.

Markets function on cycles, but those cycles are always changing. Because correlations and market relationships shift over time, the founders foresee investors using the system not simply to predict the market but to visualize how various scenarios could impact industries as well as our individual holdings.

Still in a beta soft-launch, at times the site suffers from gaps in some of its more obscure sources it had no ideas for stocks that would likely rally if uranium prices fall, for example. Improvements are ongoing, however and for a reasonable $1 month-long trial, the platform offers everyday investors a unique chance to stress test their own portfolios against scenarios of varying severity, including a domestic terror attack and a default in Greek debt.

While MarketHistory.com, which we profiled a few years back, uses stock analogs to spot trends, HiddenLevers is unique in its ambition to combine such a wide variety of fundamental and technical factors into a platform even beginning investors can benefit from.