The single biggest indicator from my perspective and what I learned as a stock broker is the money. I have known people who brazenly lied to sell stuff they knew was about to collapse. It is illegal, it is called "the Chinese wall" but I have seen first hand that they will use inside information to turn their clients into chumps.
So I look at the money, people lie, the money tells the truth.
An inverted yield curve tells you what the money is telling you. It tells you that the bond holders see a coming collapse in the economy. That is the only plausible explanation of an inverted yield curve.
The second thing I look at is the big money. There are a lot of small fry investors, they don't have the inside information and no one is afraid to stab them in the back, but the big money, that is a very different story. You don't stab them in the back, they have an army of lawyers and a very fat rolodex of contacts. The bond market is 10x the stock market. We are talking about all the Central banks, these are the really, really big guys.
The third thing you look at is major players. China bought 300 tons of gold in one month.
That is all you need to see, 1-2-3, that is it, coming collapse, you can take that to the bank, or better yet pull the money out of the bank and put it into silver.