Speaker 1: But knowledge to work and grow your business with c
Speaker 1: i T. From transportation to healthcare to manufacturing. C i
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Speaker 1: small and middle market businesses. Learn more at c i
Speaker 1: T dot com put Knowledge to Work. Hello and welcome
Speaker 1: to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe
Speaker 1: Wisental and I'm Tracy Halloway. So, Tracy, I don't think
Speaker 1: I've ever asked you this, but do you like the Beatles? Uh?
Speaker 1: I feel like there's only one way to answer that question, right,
Speaker 1: Like you would be worried if someone said that they
Speaker 1: didn't like the Beatles. I have met people who say
Speaker 1: they think the Beatles are bad, but every single one
Speaker 1: of them is one is either a troll or a
Speaker 1: mindless contrarian. And I don't like those kind of people.
Speaker 1: What do you think about the Beatles? I actually think
Speaker 1: the Beatles are underrated, and it's sort of I have this.
Speaker 1: I have this belief that the best things in life,
Speaker 1: like in any category, are always underrated, Like I think
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali are underrated, for example. But
Speaker 1: that's the way that that that we could That's a
Speaker 1: topic for probably another episode. But the topic for this
Speaker 1: episode is, um, the Beatles or music in general or
Speaker 1: you know, what are we going to be discussing it
Speaker 1: kind of is the Beatles? Did you know that you
Speaker 1: know if you look at the history of the stock market,
Speaker 1: that certain peaks and troughs in the market actually line
Speaker 1: up with Beatles songs. Uh? You know, I have at
Speaker 1: one time or another scene that chart, and I've always
Speaker 1: been very intrigued by it. But of course, I guess
Speaker 1: when you see a chart like that, the thing that
Speaker 1: springs to mind is correlation versus causation, right, right, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: But you know, there are people who think that we
Speaker 1: can look at things like what kind of songs are
Speaker 1: popular at any given time, or what kind of fashions
Speaker 1: or what kind of other cultural things are going on,
Speaker 1: and then use that to tell us something about societal mood,
Speaker 1: and then use that information to make calls on the market.
Speaker 1: I mean that sounds really fascinating to me, and I
Speaker 1: can see how you could use pop culture to gauge
Speaker 1: maybe optimism and the strength of the economy. But again,
Speaker 1: like I suppose, the big issue is whether or not
Speaker 1: you get into a chicken and egg situation, right like,
Speaker 1: is the mood following on from the economy or is
Speaker 1: the economy driving the mood. It's fascinating. I mean the
Speaker 1: third possibility is that there's no connection at all and
Speaker 1: people are just drawing random lines on charge. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm still intrigued. And there's this guy, Robert Prector, who
Speaker 1: founded something called the Socioomics Institute that examines this in depth,
Speaker 1: this connection between cultural mood day and UH and the market.
Speaker 1: And we are going to be talking to someone who
Speaker 1: works at the Sociogonomics Institute to really dive into these
Speaker 1: connections UH. And we're gonna listen to some Beatles songs, right,
Speaker 1: and that's really what we're doing here. We're gonna listen
Speaker 1: to some Beatles songs and talk about some charts. So
Speaker 1: it should sort of a dream episode. I'm excited. Matt Lampard,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for joining us today. That's a
Speaker 1: pleasure to be here. So Matt, first of all, just
Speaker 1: tell us what is the Sociogomics Institute, what do you do,
Speaker 1: who founded it, and what do you study At the institute.
Speaker 1: We study the relationship between social mood and social events.
Speaker 1: When we tend to think about mood and events. The
Speaker 1: common perception out there is that events shape our mood.
Speaker 1: So we'll read things in the newspaper, like a new
Speaker 1: jobs report came out and that made consumers more optimistic,
Speaker 1: or a politician gives a rousing, encouraging address and perhaps
Speaker 1: that will lift investor confidence. What we do in sociomics
Speaker 1: is we look at that relationship the other way around.
Speaker 1: So instead of starting with the events, we start with
Speaker 1: the mood and we look at how social mood shapes
Speaker 1: the tenor and character of social events, because those events
Speaker 1: have to come from somewhere, and they come from people,
Speaker 1: people who have feelings. So we find that if you
Speaker 1: look at how people are feeling, then you've got a
Speaker 1: leg up on anticipating their actions. And this whole perspective
Speaker 1: came about through a market analyst named Robert Prector. He
Speaker 1: was a Wall Street guy, worked at Meryl Lynch for
Speaker 1: many years as a technical market analyst, and he was successful,
Speaker 1: and he he decided he would start his own firm,
Speaker 1: and the emphasis of the firm started being fairly market focused.
Speaker 1: But as he went on in his career, he realized
Speaker 1: there were all these interesting connections between what was going
Speaker 1: on in the stock market, and what was going on
Speaker 1: in popular culture with music, movies, politics, all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1: And he started to cultivate a theory that linked those
Speaker 1: two things together. And his proposal was that was a
Speaker 1: common social psychology, a common social mood that was driving
Speaker 1: activity in all of these different domains. So when investors
Speaker 1: were feeling more optimistic, they were inclined a bit of
Speaker 1: stock prices, But when voters were inclined to feel optimistic,
Speaker 1: they were inclined to reelect incumbents. And when teenagers were
Speaker 1: feeling optimistic, they listened to happy, upbeat pop music, and
Speaker 1: then the opposite when that mood turned negative. So, Matt
Speaker 1: tell us, how do you actually go about gauging um
Speaker 1: the public mood? You mentioned pop culture there, but I
Speaker 1: imagine there's some wiggle room for interpretation, right, we look
Speaker 1: at all sorts of indicators. Prector argues that the stock
Speaker 1: market is really the best indicator of social mood because
Speaker 1: not only is it the area where people can express
Speaker 1: their levels of optimism and pessimism, but they can do
Speaker 1: it quite quickly. It just takes a few moments to
Speaker 1: trade a stock, a few clicks of amounts, or a
Speaker 1: call to a broker, and we've got stock data going
Speaker 1: back hundreds of years, so we can back test the
Speaker 1: theory and we can also track mood in real time.
Speaker 1: But we definitely look at a number of other indicators
Speaker 1: as well. There's survey data out there on consumer confidence,
Speaker 1: economic confidence. We look at, as you've mentioned, pop culture indicators,
Speaker 1: what music is popular, what movies are popular. But we
Speaker 1: really find that the stock market is the best indicator
Speaker 1: of mood, and we use some of these other indicators
Speaker 1: to confirm or deny the message of the stock market
Speaker 1: seems to be giving us. Now, in the intro, we
Speaker 1: mentioned the Beatles, and there's this chart that I've seen
Speaker 1: floating around the Internet for a long time titled Major
Speaker 1: Events in the Beatles Career Tracks Social Mood, and it's
Speaker 1: a chart from of the DOWD Jones from nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: six to nineteen seventy and at various times in uh
Speaker 1: these fourteen years, it's annotated with key events in the
Speaker 1: history of the Beatles. So, for example, there's a market
Speaker 1: market peak right around when Rubber Soul came out. It
Speaker 1: spent six weeks at number one. What's the connection there?
Speaker 1: So then the market immediately dropped. So let's let's put
Speaker 1: this social mood theory into practice. Tell us something about
Speaker 1: what was on rubber soul, and then tell us what
Speaker 1: it how it might have indicated a top in the market.
Speaker 1: The study that you're talking about is one that Robert
Speaker 1: Pructor did. It was a case study of the Beatles
Speaker 1: where he tracked their career and found it they were
Speaker 1: a group that that aligned quite well with the with
Speaker 1: the trends in the market. And if you look at
Speaker 1: their history, look at the Beatlemania period basically goes from
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two to ninete in sixties six, This is
Speaker 1: when they were performing in front of stadiums with screaming fans.
Speaker 1: The whole Beatlemania phenomenon was going on. And what happened,
Speaker 1: Like you said, in nineteen sixty six, this phenomenon tops out.
Speaker 1: It's the top of the market right around the same time.
Speaker 1: And practice argument is that what's happening here is that
Speaker 1: social mood is becoming incredibly optimistic here in the mid
Speaker 1: sixties and investors are expressing that optimism by bidding stock
Speaker 1: market prices stock prices higher and higher, and teenagers are
Speaker 1: expressing it by going out and screaming and buying Beatles
Speaker 1: records and singing along and this sort of thing. And
Speaker 1: after that top in the market in nineteen sixties six,
Speaker 1: what we see is a change in social mood, a
Speaker 1: change in the psychology, and with that change in psychology
Speaker 1: came a change in behavior. So the Beatles decide that
Speaker 1: they're going to stop live touring. They're gonna stay active
Speaker 1: in the studio, but they retire from doing the live shows.
Speaker 1: There's internal tumult within the group. There was even death threats,
Speaker 1: this sort of thing. The market eventually rallies, they get
Speaker 1: more active in the studio. They decide that they're gonna
Speaker 1: record and put out another album. But the bear market
Speaker 1: was already in play here. And in April of nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: that bear market really started to unfold. Paul announced that
Speaker 1: he was leaving the group, and then the band released
Speaker 1: their last studio album early the following month, within days
Speaker 1: of the Kent State shooting. It's also the month of
Speaker 1: a of a low in the market. So we see
Speaker 1: this change in psychology showing up throughout the social experience.
Speaker 1: That's showing up in the market, it showing up in
Speaker 1: the music, and it's showing up in the character of
Speaker 1: political and social events as well. But here's what I
Speaker 1: don't get about the specific example. So if you say
Speaker 1: that the peak of Beatlemania coincided with the top of
Speaker 1: the stock market stock market and a lot of teenagers
Speaker 1: were really excited about this new rock group and they
Speaker 1: were singing along, I mean there were a lot of
Speaker 1: people around who didn't like the Beatles and who saw
Speaker 1: it as like a sign of the deterioration of the
Speaker 1: old world order um that they were familiar with. So
Speaker 1: how do you kind of I mean, how do you gauge,
Speaker 1: like who likes what and which is more important for
Speaker 1: overall mood. We really look at what's popular. The Beatles
Speaker 1: are one of the most popular music acts in the
Speaker 1: history of the planet. And sure, of course there's always
Speaker 1: a mix, right there are people who who like certain
Speaker 1: things and people who don't like other things. But they're
Speaker 1: definitely a certainly a very very popular group. But it's
Speaker 1: important to keep in mind too that of course there's
Speaker 1: a mix of opinions, beliefs, actions, uh feelings in society
Speaker 1: at all times. Social moods always in flux, and within
Speaker 1: that flux, there's always a mix going on. But the
Speaker 1: question we look at. What we look at is what's
Speaker 1: the quantity and intensity of positive expressions relative to negative expressions.
Speaker 1: So things are never uniformly positive, they're never uniformly negative.
Speaker 1: There's always a mix, but sometimes the balance is shifted
Speaker 1: far more towards the positive side or far more towards
Speaker 1: the negative side. And that's really where you can get
Speaker 1: a better idea of what's going on in the mood
Speaker 1: trend continuing on the Beatles, and then we could sort
Speaker 1: of move off it. I noticed in the late sixties
Speaker 1: that the White Album was released, That's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite albums, and that sort of that was a key
Speaker 1: peak in the market well, and there was also a
Speaker 1: change in the tone of the music around the around
Speaker 1: this time as well. They started becoming more introspective, the
Speaker 1: songwriting became more complex, And one of practice observations is
Speaker 1: that in negative mood periods, one of the manifestations that
Speaker 1: we see, at least in the music world is uh,
Speaker 1: not only a harder edged sound to it, but also
Speaker 1: more sophisticated lyrics, more sophisticated songwriting. And as the Beatles
Speaker 1: grew war on, is there a song that you think
Speaker 1: from that period that really sort of captures this new
Speaker 1: style of introspective, slightly darker songwriting of the Beatles. It
Speaker 1: one could listen to that would have foreshadowed the coming
Speaker 1: sell off in the market appears right after that the
Speaker 1: dow was it around one thousand fell as uh got
Speaker 1: around six hundred, so fairly significant sell off in the
Speaker 1: TAO over the next couple of years. Is there a
Speaker 1: song or something that sort of you think really encapsulates
Speaker 1: this mood change. Well, there's definitely a change in the
Speaker 1: in the tone of the music. For example, if you
Speaker 1: look at the Beatles early stuff, it's energetic, they're singing
Speaker 1: you know, she loves you, Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then
Speaker 1: by the end they're singing, Hey Jude, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's slower, it's dorker, Hey, don't make it bad.
Speaker 1: But really, what we're doing here is what we're trying
Speaker 1: to look at, is this change in psychology that's going on.
Speaker 1: And we're not necessarily using the Beatles as a cell
Speaker 1: signal or a by signal or something like that. We're
Speaker 1: really just trying to say this psychology is showing up
Speaker 1: and a lot of different areas of social expression in music.
Speaker 1: Music is one of those. And now let's take a
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Speaker 1: and we're back. We were just talking about the Beatles
Speaker 1: and whether or not you can sort of trace social
Speaker 1: mood through the ups and downs of the Beatles career
Speaker 1: and whether that has an impact on wider markets. Uh So, Matt,
Speaker 1: I wanted to fast forward about forty years. Let's go
Speaker 1: straight to now. When you look at the social mood
Speaker 1: at the moment, what do you see and what particular
Speaker 1: things are you looking at to gauge it? Right? So
Speaker 1: mood right now? Is is is that a really interesting juncture.
Speaker 1: So we've got in the US, you've got the markets
Speaker 1: near all time highs. There's been all sorts of things
Speaker 1: written about how how calm the markets are and how
Speaker 1: voll I mean, we've heard this one a million times
Speaker 1: over the past a month or so. Uh So, you've
Speaker 1: got this this complacency that's going on at least in
Speaker 1: the US. But if you turn around and you look
Speaker 1: elsewhere in the globe, let's say you go over to Europe,
Speaker 1: what you see is a pretty different picture. The Eurostocks
Speaker 1: fifty index topped in two thousand and on that basis,
Speaker 1: the eurostocks has been in a bear market ever since. Now,
Speaker 1: some national indexes have rallied to new all time highs,
Speaker 1: or if not, have rallied strongly within that trend of late.
Speaker 1: But you look at the tenor of character and actions
Speaker 1: in Europe and they're so different. You've got all kinds
Speaker 1: of political fracturing going on within the EU, You've got
Speaker 1: breakdowns in tension. I mean, this was supposed to be
Speaker 1: a glorious alliance of all these countries that have fought
Speaker 1: for thousands of years with each other, and now that
Speaker 1: they tried get together in form a a union, well,
Speaker 1: that's a manifestation in itself of of of a large
Speaker 1: degree positive mood trend. And as that moods turned negative,
Speaker 1: we've seen the social manifestations of that turn negative as well.
Speaker 1: And we've gotten a flavor of that in the US.
Speaker 1: Certainly there's there's all kinds of polarization to it, but certainly, uh,
Speaker 1: not quite at the level of Europe just yet. When
Speaker 1: you look at cultural things in the US, is there
Speaker 1: anything equivalent that you're tracking, uh sort of musically film
Speaker 1: stuff artistically that sort of might give you a sense
Speaker 1: of where the mood is in the US. Are signs
Speaker 1: that it may be turning in one direction or another.
Speaker 1: One of the things that practice looked at in the
Speaker 1: movie space in particular is is trends and Disney movies
Speaker 1: versus trends and horror movies. So the heyday of Disney
Speaker 1: in the mid nineteen sixties, uh, where they released some
Speaker 1: of their classic films, and of course it's started with
Speaker 1: White Well, but were then uh, you know this is
Speaker 1: this is a great positive mood stuff, upbeat, family fair.
Speaker 1: There's a Disney renaissance in the late eighties and the
Speaker 1: nineties where again they just had hit after hit after hit,
Speaker 1: and then that got interrupted. In the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: horror movies came back in vogue. You had the saw films,
Speaker 1: the torture movies, and these films were a call back
Speaker 1: to films that were popular in the bear market of
Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and then
Speaker 1: just just genuinely scary films like The Exorcist, which themselves
Speaker 1: were called backs to films that are popular in in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen thirties during the depression. Dracula, Frankenstein, this
Speaker 1: sort of thing. So right now, we we've seen another
Speaker 1: hit from Disney. They had frozen fairly recently in the
Speaker 1: past few years. But then, but then, of course, the
Speaker 1: Beauty and the Beast remake was a huge hit. They
Speaker 1: had a Cinderella remake, there was a huge hit. The
Speaker 1: Jungle Book remake was a huge hit. So those movies
Speaker 1: are still popular, and we think that the social mood
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with that. But if you're
Speaker 1: a horror movie fan, just hold your breath. It's okay.
Speaker 1: When mood turns negative. There should be some more groundbreaking
Speaker 1: horror stuff on the way for you. I mean you
Speaker 1: you're mentioning Disney movies. Um, the comeback of Disney right now.
Speaker 1: You mentioned earlier that the stock market was probably the
Speaker 1: best expression of current mood. So if you look at
Speaker 1: the US market, which seems to be reaching new highs
Speaker 1: um every week, now, how do you square that with
Speaker 1: what's been going on in politics? Because when we look
Speaker 1: at the US elections, UM and a lot of the
Speaker 1: sort of populist political issues happening right now, it seems
Speaker 1: like there is a lot of anger out there, and
Speaker 1: there is a lot of uncertainty. There's definitely a lot
Speaker 1: of political polarization going on in the US. And in fact,
Speaker 1: my colleague here at the Institute, Robert Fulsome, did a
Speaker 1: study called y Trump Why Now. It came out in
Speaker 1: March of during the primaries, and one of the interesting
Speaker 1: things about the primaries is that the candidates on the
Speaker 1: Republican side, at least initially didn't take Trump very seriously.
Speaker 1: Jeb Bush spent all kinds of money attacking the other
Speaker 1: challengers and basically figured here this Trump guile peter out
Speaker 1: on his own. But Robert looked at the market and
Speaker 1: reached a different conclusion. Now, what we like to do
Speaker 1: with the market is we like to look at at
Speaker 1: a nominal terms. We also like to look at it
Speaker 1: in real money terms. And if you look at the
Speaker 1: market in real terms, that you find is that the
Speaker 1: all time high in the US was and we've been
Speaker 1: in a large degree bear market ever since. Now since
Speaker 1: index has been rallying, we think it's a bear market rally.
Speaker 1: But once you start to see, okay, well, we've got
Speaker 1: nominal markets at all time high as you've got the
Speaker 1: market in real terms, in this bear market rally, it
Speaker 1: makes sense that you'd still see a little bit more
Speaker 1: of a mix, and the polarization that we saw in
Speaker 1: the in the election certainly makes sense in that context.
Speaker 1: And we think that if we see the nominal indexes
Speaker 1: joining the real money indexes on the downside, that's when
Speaker 1: what seems like intense polarization now will get even more. So. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sort of reminds me of one of my favorite charts,
Speaker 1: which is just the the Dow Jones divided by the
Speaker 1: price of gold, because it's sort of to me, is
Speaker 1: like a measure of like, you know, stocks are, there's
Speaker 1: a sort of investment in human capital, cooperation, society progressing,
Speaker 1: and gold is a rock or a metal or something
Speaker 1: that has no real productive value. And what you see
Speaker 1: is sort of as you say, in two thousand, that
Speaker 1: ratio hit incredible heights and we're still not anywhere in
Speaker 1: that declined as you said through two thousand eleven was
Speaker 1: when that ratio hit it's low, and we're still not
Speaker 1: anywhere near the old highs in terms of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: that ratio signaling at least you know, relative to about
Speaker 1: you know, fifteen or twenty years ago. People are still
Speaker 1: really into rocks relative to humans. That's right. It's interesting
Speaker 1: to look at markets priced and gold. We we like
Speaker 1: to look at Dow Gold for sure. In my colleague
Speaker 1: Allen Hall has just been doing some work recently where
Speaker 1: he's looking at lots of other national stock indexes priced
Speaker 1: in gold. And what you find when you do that
Speaker 1: is that the rally in the U S sinceleven is
Speaker 1: one of the longer rallies when you look at these
Speaker 1: gold denominated indexes globally, a market like Russia has seen
Speaker 1: its nominally in real money indexes falling in tandem since
Speaker 1: about two thousand eight. And when you look at the
Speaker 1: social manifestations that are going on in Russia, suddenly it
Speaker 1: starts to make a little bit more sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: back in two thousand seven, Russia was the darling of
Speaker 1: of of investors. Vladimir Putin was Times Man of the Year.
Speaker 1: They were part of this assortment of brick countries along
Speaker 1: with Brazil, Indya and China, where there was allegedly huge
Speaker 1: investment opportunities out there. And in that environment, Alan said, look,
Speaker 1: there's so much optimism surrounding Russia right now. This is
Speaker 1: very likely going to be a peak in the Russian markets,
Speaker 1: and use the Elliot wave model to to verify that analysis,
Speaker 1: and said, folks, we've got a major bear market coming
Speaker 1: in Russian. When we see that that change in psychology
Speaker 1: manifest in the market, that's when it's definitely time to
Speaker 1: be on the lookout for a military resurgence from from
Speaker 1: that country. And after the market declined, there was the
Speaker 1: invasion of Ukraine and and we've seen just just this
Speaker 1: resurgence and militarism coming coming from Russian And once you
Speaker 1: understand the psychology over there in the context of this
Speaker 1: long term negative mood trend, it starts to make make
Speaker 1: a lot more sense. Matt. That kind of reminds me.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask how much um analysis you do
Speaker 1: on non US, non European countries and how you actually
Speaker 1: do that analysis, Like would you gauge social mood in
Speaker 1: an emerging market like India or Vietnam And how does
Speaker 1: gathering that information differ from doing it in a developed market.
Speaker 1: Sure well, with the wave of globalization that that took
Speaker 1: hold from the eighties and nineties and into the early
Speaker 1: two thousand, we've got market index is just just about
Speaker 1: all over the world, and we have analysts who cover
Speaker 1: those markets and also look at them through a socionomic
Speaker 1: lens to look at the cultural manifestations in those countries.
Speaker 1: My colleague Mark Galaschowski does a lot of work in
Speaker 1: Asia and the Middle East, looking at India, Pakistan and
Speaker 1: then China, Japan. This sort of thing, and the method
Speaker 1: is is similar to what we do in the U
Speaker 1: S where you take the stock index in the local country,
Speaker 1: use that as an indicator of mood, and then you
Speaker 1: use it as a as a benchmark to forecast and
Speaker 1: contextualize social events that are going on over there. Uh.
Speaker 1: Now we have to wrap up soon. But I think
Speaker 1: you know. The part that sort of I'm still struggling
Speaker 1: with is you know, and I'm sure you've heard this
Speaker 1: people questioned this before, which is that you know, you
Speaker 1: can see a market move, you can see a move
Speaker 1: in the stock mark it and then go back and
Speaker 1: construct an argument for why the mood was good. So
Speaker 1: we say, okay, uh, the stock market has been doing
Speaker 1: really well for the last several years. And look at
Speaker 1: Disney movies. There are a lot more Disney movies than
Speaker 1: there were horror movies, and so this is a sign
Speaker 1: that people are optimistic or you're saying, uh, the US
Speaker 1: elected Trump and you're like, but we're you know, we're
Speaker 1: still kind of in a long term bear market in
Speaker 1: real terms, what do you say to people who say
Speaker 1: that this kind of analysis is essentially retrospective fitting of
Speaker 1: events to markets and that you can sort of ex
Speaker 1: post facto come up with any uh, any mood characterization
Speaker 1: that you'd like to get it to work. Well, I
Speaker 1: think having some objective criteria for your analysis goes a
Speaker 1: long way in doing that. But the other the other
Speaker 1: thing that we do is we issue real time forecasts
Speaker 1: all the time. We've got a monthly publication called the
Speaker 1: Socioonomists where every month we're issuing real time forecast and
Speaker 1: analysis of what's happening right now and looking ahead into
Speaker 1: the future. So I think you you just do your
Speaker 1: best to forecast in real time, and then when you
Speaker 1: look at the past, you just try to be as
Speaker 1: objective as you can, lay down some parameters and see
Speaker 1: where the where the data. Thank you, Matt Lampert of
Speaker 1: the Sociogomics Institute. Really appreciate you coming on fascinating work
Speaker 1: that you do. Thank you so much. So, Tracy, are
Speaker 1: you going to start scanning the weekly billboard charts and
Speaker 1: box office receipts to gain some insight on where the
Speaker 1: market's going. I was kind of thinking, like, if if
Speaker 1: you think that the Beatles were a good way of
Speaker 1: gauging social mood because they were something around which a
Speaker 1: large proportion of people coalesced, what would be the equivalent today?
Speaker 1: And the only thing I could think of, um was
Speaker 1: either Taylor Swift or maybe One Direction or Beyonce. I
Speaker 1: don't know, well I would say, yeah, I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift and Beyonce are probably the only two musicians
Speaker 1: today that have the sort of like megapower, mega influence,
Speaker 1: mega fan base that might be able to tell you
Speaker 1: anything about where the market's going. So maybe that's a
Speaker 1: good a good reason to listen to both of them
Speaker 1: more closely and see how their songwriting styles evolved. Right,
Speaker 1: It is interesting. I think Taylor Swift like sort of
Speaker 1: switched from h from country to pop fairly around the
Speaker 1: time the market rebounded, So maybe there is something there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but here's the thing I mean, I was kind of
Speaker 1: talking about it with the Beatles, but like, does everyone
Speaker 1: love Taylor swift know, like, is it a pretty big movement?
Speaker 1: I just I just don't know how much signal you
Speaker 1: can actually get UM from Taylor's it. No, And I
Speaker 1: thought that was a really good question in general, that yeah,
Speaker 1: sure the Beatles are popular, but other people probably at
Speaker 1: the time, So it is the you know, the collapse
Speaker 1: of Western civilization that the kids were listening to rock
Speaker 1: and roll. So I think it's intriguing stuff. I love
Speaker 1: looking at their charts. They fascinate me. Um, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure I would, you know, necessarily commit my life savings
Speaker 1: to strategies based on it. But you know, look, I
Speaker 1: mean I consider myself an open minded person, so I
Speaker 1: won't dismiss it entirely. Look, I think most people would
Speaker 1: say the more data that you can get, UM, the
Speaker 1: more informed you are as an investor. So there, I
Speaker 1: feel like there is something there with social mood. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And you know, one of our previous guests on the show, UM,
Speaker 1: Peter Atwater from Financial Insights UH is also very into it,
Speaker 1: and he does it very well. And if you think
Speaker 1: about the economy and the fact that a large portion
Speaker 1: of the economy is driven by people's confidence and their
Speaker 1: belief in their ability to invest. Then there is an
Speaker 1: obvious link. I just find it difficult to kind of
Speaker 1: tease it out because ultimately you're dealing with human behavior
Speaker 1: and emotions and it can be tricky. Still, it's a
Speaker 1: good excuse to listen to more music. Yeah, okay, let's
Speaker 1: go do that. All right, sounds good. This has been
Speaker 1: another episode of the Odd LODs podcast. I'm Joseph Why
Speaker 1: Isn't There? You can follow me on Twitter at the
Speaker 1: Stalwart and I'm Tracy Alloway. I'm on Twitter at Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Put knowledge to work and grow your
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