Start with a life phase. Inside it are frictions: the pressures a person actually feels at that age. Under each friction are the solutions the market built. Under those are the new frictions those solutions created, and the solutions built for those in turn. Follow the chain far enough and you arrive at things that look abstract — mortgage-backed securities, bank capital rules — but are only four or five steps from a couple who needed a bedroom.
What it is for
The map is a decision tool, not an encyclopedia. It answers questions of the form: which frictions are underserved, which solutions have no company behind them, which companies depend on the same enabler, which trends threaten a business model, and which macro factors move a sector. Every claim is a node you can open and argue with.
The nine layers
A human invariant. Ten of them, unchanged across eras and cultures. Constants are not markets; they are the raw material every market is made from.
A stage of a human life. The spine of the map. A phase reweights the constants — safety dominates infancy, status dominates adolescence, mortality dominates old age.
A specific pressure produced where a constant meets a phase. Frictions are the unit of analysis in this map: everything else exists because of one.
Anything built to relieve a friction: a product, a service, an industry, a financial instrument, an institution, or an unpaid social practice. In this map a solution must trace back to a life phase, or it does not belong here.
Law, technology, infrastructure or knowledge that solutions require but which relieves no human friction on its own. Property law does not house anyone; it makes housing finance possible.
How the market groups what it built. Sectors are included so that the human view and the investment view can be laid over each other.
An organisation that sells a solution or provides an enabler. Public, private, mutual, nonprofit and government bodies are all included, because for many frictions the largest provider is not a listed company.
Something that moves the price of the things in this map. Factors are graded by how much they typically move, not by how interesting they are.
A structural force that will change which frictions hurt, which solutions win, and which companies get paid. Trends are the forward-looking layer and the most arguable one.
A composite reading that turns a cluster of market factors into one direction a person can hold in their head. Six of them describe the whole environment.
A documented sequence by which a move in a dial reaches sectors, companies and households. Every chain states what would falsify it and where it has failed before.
Three kinds of friction
Something a person cannot ignore. Non-negotiable, usually urgent, and the most reliable foundation for a business.
Something a person cannot stop feeling. Discretionary in theory, relentless in practice — status and belonging live here.
A problem people have quietly learned to live around. The most interesting category, because tolerance means nobody has solved it well enough to be noticed.
A first-order friction arises directly from a phase. A second-order friction was created by a solution to a first-order one. Follow the orders upward and you get modern finance, regulation and insurance, none of which would exist if the first problem had never been solved.
How things connect
Every link in this map has a type, so a connection always means something specific.
| Link | Means |
|---|---|
ROOTED_IN | This friction comes from this human constant. |
ARISES_IN | This friction appears in this life phase. |
RELIEVES | This solution eases this friction. It rarely eliminates it. |
REQUIRES | This solution cannot exist without this enabler or other solution. |
CREATES | Solving one problem produced a new one. This is where most of the map's depth comes from. |
SUBSTITUTES | Two solutions compete to relieve the same friction. |
IN_SECTOR | Grouped here by the market's own categories. |
SERVES | This company sells this solution. |
PROVIDES | This company supplies this enabler that other solutions depend on. |
AFFECTS | This market factor moves this sector more than most. |
INTENSIFIES | This trend is making this friction worse or more widely felt. |
ACCELERATES | This trend increases demand for this solution. |
THREATENS | This trend undermines this solution's business model. |
SHAPES | This trend reorders this sector. |
WATCH | This factor is how you track whether this trend is playing out. |
FAVOURS | This trend is a tailwind for this company. |
PRESSURES | This trend is a headwind for this company. |
TRANSMITS | When this factor moves, that one tends to move after it. This is the documented transmission path, not correlation. |
FEEDS | This factor is one of the inputs to a composite dial. |
GOVERNS | This dial has an unusually large influence on this sector. |
RUNS_FROM | This transmission chain begins when this dial moves. |
CONFIRMED_BY | If the chain is running, this factor is where you would see it. |
HELPS | This chain is a tailwind for the sector. |
HURTS | This chain is a headwind for the sector. |
How market factors are graded
Moves everything and sets the direction for months or years. These are the discount rate, the level of earnings, the availability of credit, and the shocks large enough to stop the economy. If one of these turns, nothing else in the list matters much.
Moves the index for days or weeks. Scheduled data releases, policy decisions, global spillovers, and the prices of money and energy. This is the tier most professional attention is spent on.
Moves prices without changing anything fundamental, on horizons from hours to weeks. Who is forced to buy or sell, and when. Ignore this tier and market moves will regularly look inexplicable.
Moves one company or one group, not the market. Any factor here becomes tier one if it gets large enough — a bank failure and a pandemic both started as somebody's sector news.
The one rule
No solution appears in this map without a traceable path back to a life phase. That rule is enforced by the build: if a product cannot be connected to a human problem, it does not belong here. It is also why the deepest entries — bank capital regulation, student-loan forgiveness — sit six steps from a person, and why they look abstract when you meet them anywhere else.
What to treat with caution
Market values are approximate figures for orientation, not trading data. Impact tiers, trend stages and every trend link are judgements rather than measurements; they are written down precisely so they can be disagreed with. Company mappings are representative rather than exhaustive.