WEBVTT - How to Use Pop Music to Forecast the Stock Market 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.320 But knowledge to work and grow your business with c 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:06.680 i T. From transportation to healthcare to manufacturing. C i 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:10.520 T offers commercial lending, leasing, and treasury management services for 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:13.480 small and middle market businesses. Learn more at c i 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:27.200 T dot com put Knowledge to Work. Hello and welcome 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.880 to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:34.400 Wisental and I'm Tracy Halloway. So, Tracy, I don't think 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:38.280 I've ever asked you this, but do you like the Beatles? Uh? 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:43.040 I feel like there's only one way to answer that question, right, 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:45.320 Like you would be worried if someone said that they 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:49.600 didn't like the Beatles. I have met people who say 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.560 they think the Beatles are bad, but every single one 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:55.320 of them is one is either a troll or a 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:57.760 mindless contrarian. And I don't like those kind of people. 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:01.160 What do you think about the Beatles? I actually think 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.080 the Beatles are underrated, and it's sort of I have this. 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:06.600 I have this belief that the best things in life, 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:10.039 like in any category, are always underrated, Like I think 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:14.440 Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali are underrated, for example. But 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.000 that's the way that that that we could That's a 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.840 topic for probably another episode. But the topic for this 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:25.480 episode is, um, the Beatles or music in general or 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:27.640 you know, what are we going to be discussing it 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.920 kind of is the Beatles? Did you know that you 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:34.720 know if you look at the history of the stock market, 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:38.240 that certain peaks and troughs in the market actually line 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.479 up with Beatles songs. Uh? You know, I have at 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:45.000 one time or another scene that chart, and I've always 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.320 been very intrigued by it. But of course, I guess 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:49.880 when you see a chart like that, the thing that 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:55.200 springs to mind is correlation versus causation, right, right, yes, exactly. 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:57.840 But you know, there are people who think that we 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:01.080 can look at things like what kind of songs are 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:04.520 popular at any given time, or what kind of fashions 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.200 or what kind of other cultural things are going on, 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.480 and then use that to tell us something about societal mood, 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:15.280 and then use that information to make calls on the market. 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:18.079 I mean that sounds really fascinating to me, and I 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.800 can see how you could use pop culture to gauge 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:25.680 maybe optimism and the strength of the economy. But again, 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:28.200 like I suppose, the big issue is whether or not 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:31.080 you get into a chicken and egg situation, right like, 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.440 is the mood following on from the economy or is 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:39.840 the economy driving the mood. It's fascinating. I mean the 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:44.040 third possibility is that there's no connection at all and 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:47.360 people are just drawing random lines on charge. But anyway, 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:51.959 I'm still intrigued. And there's this guy, Robert Prector, who 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:57.040 founded something called the Socioomics Institute that examines this in depth, 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:02.760 this connection between cultural mood day and UH and the market. 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:07.160 And we are going to be talking to someone who 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:11.360 works at the Sociogonomics Institute to really dive into these 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:15.119 connections UH. And we're gonna listen to some Beatles songs, right, 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:17.760 and that's really what we're doing here. We're gonna listen 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:20.160 to some Beatles songs and talk about some charts. So 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:34.480 it should sort of a dream episode. I'm excited. Matt Lampard, 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:36.600 thank you very much for joining us today. That's a 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:40.480 pleasure to be here. So Matt, first of all, just 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:44.720 tell us what is the Sociogomics Institute, what do you do, 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:49.440 who founded it, and what do you study At the institute. 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:53.680 We study the relationship between social mood and social events. 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:57.520 When we tend to think about mood and events. The 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.800 common perception out there is that events shape our mood. 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:04.520 So we'll read things in the newspaper, like a new 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.800 jobs report came out and that made consumers more optimistic, 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:11.480 or a politician gives a rousing, encouraging address and perhaps 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:15.560 that will lift investor confidence. What we do in sociomics 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.880 is we look at that relationship the other way around. 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:22.039 So instead of starting with the events, we start with 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:24.960 the mood and we look at how social mood shapes 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:28.840 the tenor and character of social events, because those events 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:31.600 have to come from somewhere, and they come from people, 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:34.800 people who have feelings. So we find that if you 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:36.520 look at how people are feeling, then you've got a 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:41.680 leg up on anticipating their actions. And this whole perspective 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:46.200 came about through a market analyst named Robert Prector. He 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:48.839 was a Wall Street guy, worked at Meryl Lynch for 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.840 many years as a technical market analyst, and he was successful, 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:56.960 and he he decided he would start his own firm, 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:01.560 and the emphasis of the firm started being fairly market focused. 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.159 But as he went on in his career, he realized 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:06.960 there were all these interesting connections between what was going 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.080 on in the stock market, and what was going on 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:14.640 in popular culture with music, movies, politics, all sorts of stuff. 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:18.840 And he started to cultivate a theory that linked those 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:21.039 two things together. And his proposal was that was a 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.800 common social psychology, a common social mood that was driving 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.000 activity in all of these different domains. So when investors 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:31.960 were feeling more optimistic, they were inclined a bit of 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:35.200 stock prices, But when voters were inclined to feel optimistic, 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.240 they were inclined to reelect incumbents. And when teenagers were 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.040 feeling optimistic, they listened to happy, upbeat pop music, and 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:44.479 then the opposite when that mood turned negative. So, Matt 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.400 tell us, how do you actually go about gauging um 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.320 the public mood? You mentioned pop culture there, but I 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:55.960 imagine there's some wiggle room for interpretation, right, we look 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.159 at all sorts of indicators. Prector argues that the stock 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:01.839 market is really the best indicator of social mood because 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:05.440 not only is it the area where people can express 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.440 their levels of optimism and pessimism, but they can do 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:10.919 it quite quickly. It just takes a few moments to 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.320 trade a stock, a few clicks of amounts, or a 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:16.200 call to a broker, and we've got stock data going 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:18.760 back hundreds of years, so we can back test the 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:21.040 theory and we can also track mood in real time. 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:23.839 But we definitely look at a number of other indicators 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.880 as well. There's survey data out there on consumer confidence, 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:31.159 economic confidence. We look at, as you've mentioned, pop culture indicators, 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:33.880 what music is popular, what movies are popular. But we 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.720 really find that the stock market is the best indicator 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:40.200 of mood, and we use some of these other indicators 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:43.200 to confirm or deny the message of the stock market 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:47.840 seems to be giving us. Now, in the intro, we 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:52.679 mentioned the Beatles, and there's this chart that I've seen 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:56.720 floating around the Internet for a long time titled Major 0:06:56.839 --> 0:07:00.920 Events in the Beatles Career Tracks Social Mood, and it's 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:04.040 a chart from of the DOWD Jones from nineteen fifty 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:09.400 six to nineteen seventy and at various times in uh 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:13.840 these fourteen years, it's annotated with key events in the 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.720 history of the Beatles. So, for example, there's a market 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:22.280 market peak right around when Rubber Soul came out. It 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.600 spent six weeks at number one. What's the connection there? 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:29.240 So then the market immediately dropped. So let's let's put 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:32.720 this social mood theory into practice. Tell us something about 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:35.840 what was on rubber soul, and then tell us what 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:38.800 it how it might have indicated a top in the market. 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.080 The study that you're talking about is one that Robert 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.160 Pructor did. It was a case study of the Beatles 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.760 where he tracked their career and found it they were 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:52.400 a group that that aligned quite well with the with 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.960 the trends in the market. And if you look at 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.680 their history, look at the Beatlemania period basically goes from 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.400 nineteen sixty two to ninete in sixties six, This is 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:05.360 when they were performing in front of stadiums with screaming fans. 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:08.800 The whole Beatlemania phenomenon was going on. And what happened, 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:12.280 Like you said, in nineteen sixty six, this phenomenon tops out. 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:15.600 It's the top of the market right around the same time. 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:18.880 And practice argument is that what's happening here is that 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.360 social mood is becoming incredibly optimistic here in the mid 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:26.480 sixties and investors are expressing that optimism by bidding stock 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:30.280 market prices stock prices higher and higher, and teenagers are 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:32.720 expressing it by going out and screaming and buying Beatles 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:36.560 records and singing along and this sort of thing. And 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.960 after that top in the market in nineteen sixties six, 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.120 what we see is a change in social mood, a 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:46.360 change in the psychology, and with that change in psychology 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:50.839 came a change in behavior. So the Beatles decide that 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:54.720 they're going to stop live touring. They're gonna stay active 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.480 in the studio, but they retire from doing the live shows. 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:01.040 There's internal tumult within the group. There was even death threats, 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:04.080 this sort of thing. The market eventually rallies, they get 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.000 more active in the studio. They decide that they're gonna 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:09.960 record and put out another album. But the bear market 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:13.720 was already in play here. And in April of nineteen seventies, 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.720 that bear market really started to unfold. Paul announced that 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.160 he was leaving the group, and then the band released 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.320 their last studio album early the following month, within days 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:24.320 of the Kent State shooting. It's also the month of 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:26.280 a of a low in the market. So we see 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:30.280 this change in psychology showing up throughout the social experience. 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:31.880 That's showing up in the market, it showing up in 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:34.680 the music, and it's showing up in the character of 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.680 political and social events as well. But here's what I 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.680 don't get about the specific example. So if you say 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.520 that the peak of Beatlemania coincided with the top of 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.679 the stock market stock market and a lot of teenagers 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:50.319 were really excited about this new rock group and they 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.520 were singing along, I mean there were a lot of 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:56.360 people around who didn't like the Beatles and who saw 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.520 it as like a sign of the deterioration of the 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.560 old world order um that they were familiar with. So 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.120 how do you kind of I mean, how do you gauge, 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:09.880 like who likes what and which is more important for 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:14.000 overall mood. We really look at what's popular. The Beatles 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:17.200 are one of the most popular music acts in the 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:19.640 history of the planet. And sure, of course there's always 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.240 a mix, right there are people who who like certain 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:24.560 things and people who don't like other things. But they're 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:28.679 definitely a certainly a very very popular group. But it's 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.040 important to keep in mind too that of course there's 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:36.040 a mix of opinions, beliefs, actions, uh feelings in society 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:38.480 at all times. Social moods always in flux, and within 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:40.800 that flux, there's always a mix going on. But the 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:43.600 question we look at. What we look at is what's 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:50.640 the quantity and intensity of positive expressions relative to negative expressions. 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:54.600 So things are never uniformly positive, they're never uniformly negative. 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.680 There's always a mix, but sometimes the balance is shifted 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:00.360 far more towards the positive side or far more towards 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:03.319 the negative side. And that's really where you can get 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:05.520 a better idea of what's going on in the mood 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.560 trend continuing on the Beatles, and then we could sort 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.439 of move off it. I noticed in the late sixties 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:14.480 that the White Album was released, That's one of my 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:18.360 favorite albums, and that sort of that was a key 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:21.760 peak in the market well, and there was also a 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:24.440 change in the tone of the music around the around 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:28.440 this time as well. They started becoming more introspective, the 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:32.520 songwriting became more complex, And one of practice observations is 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:36.679 that in negative mood periods, one of the manifestations that 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.160 we see, at least in the music world is uh, 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.880 not only a harder edged sound to it, but also 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:47.640 more sophisticated lyrics, more sophisticated songwriting. And as the Beatles 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:50.760 grew war on, is there a song that you think 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:54.439 from that period that really sort of captures this new 0:11:54.640 --> 0:12:00.079 style of introspective, slightly darker songwriting of the Beatles. It 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.280 one could listen to that would have foreshadowed the coming 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:05.959 sell off in the market appears right after that the 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:09.440 dow was it around one thousand fell as uh got 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.680 around six hundred, so fairly significant sell off in the 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.360 TAO over the next couple of years. Is there a 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:18.160 song or something that sort of you think really encapsulates 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.440 this mood change. Well, there's definitely a change in the 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:23.040 in the tone of the music. For example, if you 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:26.560 look at the Beatles early stuff, it's energetic, they're singing 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:34.679 you know, she loves you, Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.040 by the end they're singing, Hey Jude, and it's you know, 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:43.199 it's it's slower, it's dorker, Hey, don't make it bad. 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:48.840 But really, what we're doing here is what we're trying 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:51.760 to look at, is this change in psychology that's going on. 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.440 And we're not necessarily using the Beatles as a cell 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:56.920 signal or a by signal or something like that. We're 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.560 really just trying to say this psychology is showing up 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.839 and a lot of different areas of social expression in music. 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:05.520 Music is one of those. And now let's take a 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:08.320 break for a word from our sponsor. 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We were just talking about the Beatles 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:39.800 and whether or not you can sort of trace social 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:42.440 mood through the ups and downs of the Beatles career 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:47.480 and whether that has an impact on wider markets. Uh So, Matt, 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:52.000 I wanted to fast forward about forty years. Let's go 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:55.360 straight to now. When you look at the social mood 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:58.880 at the moment, what do you see and what particular 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:01.880 things are you looking at to gauge it? Right? So 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.840 mood right now? Is is is that a really interesting juncture. 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:08.120 So we've got in the US, you've got the markets 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:11.720 near all time highs. There's been all sorts of things 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:14.160 written about how how calm the markets are and how 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.280 voll I mean, we've heard this one a million times 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.520 over the past a month or so. Uh So, you've 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:23.000 got this this complacency that's going on at least in 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:24.960 the US. But if you turn around and you look 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:27.360 elsewhere in the globe, let's say you go over to Europe, 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:30.240 what you see is a pretty different picture. The Eurostocks 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.360 fifty index topped in two thousand and on that basis, 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:36.520 the eurostocks has been in a bear market ever since. Now, 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:39.440 some national indexes have rallied to new all time highs, 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.920 or if not, have rallied strongly within that trend of late. 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:45.120 But you look at the tenor of character and actions 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:48.440 in Europe and they're so different. You've got all kinds 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:52.120 of political fracturing going on within the EU, You've got 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:54.440 breakdowns in tension. I mean, this was supposed to be 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.280 a glorious alliance of all these countries that have fought 0:15:57.560 --> 0:15:59.480 for thousands of years with each other, and now that 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:01.760 they tried get together in form a a union, well, 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:06.080 that's a manifestation in itself of of of a large 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:09.200 degree positive mood trend. And as that moods turned negative, 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:13.160 we've seen the social manifestations of that turn negative as well. 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:15.600 And we've gotten a flavor of that in the US. 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:19.640 Certainly there's there's all kinds of polarization to it, but certainly, uh, 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:22.120 not quite at the level of Europe just yet. When 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.440 you look at cultural things in the US, is there 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:31.040 anything equivalent that you're tracking, uh sort of musically film 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:35.640 stuff artistically that sort of might give you a sense 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.840 of where the mood is in the US. Are signs 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:40.760 that it may be turning in one direction or another. 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:43.960 One of the things that practice looked at in the 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:48.600 movie space in particular is is trends and Disney movies 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:52.920 versus trends and horror movies. So the heyday of Disney 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:56.240 in the mid nineteen sixties, uh, where they released some 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:58.880 of their classic films, and of course it's started with 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.000 White Well, but were then uh, you know this is 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:04.680 this is a great positive mood stuff, upbeat, family fair. 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.879 There's a Disney renaissance in the late eighties and the 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:10.840 nineties where again they just had hit after hit after hit, 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:15.200 and then that got interrupted. In the early two thousands, 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:18.600 horror movies came back in vogue. You had the saw films, 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:21.520 the torture movies, and these films were a call back 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:23.480 to films that were popular in the bear market of 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.240 the sixties and seventies, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and then 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:31.600 just just genuinely scary films like The Exorcist, which themselves 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.119 were called backs to films that are popular in in 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:38.639 the early nineteen thirties during the depression. Dracula, Frankenstein, this 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:44.159 sort of thing. So right now, we we've seen another 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:47.800 hit from Disney. They had frozen fairly recently in the 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.440 past few years. But then, but then, of course, the 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:53.040 Beauty and the Beast remake was a huge hit. They 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:54.879 had a Cinderella remake, there was a huge hit. The 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.840 Jungle Book remake was a huge hit. So those movies 0:17:57.840 --> 0:17:59.960 are still popular, and we think that the social mood 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:01.439 has a lot to do with that. But if you're 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:04.119 a horror movie fan, just hold your breath. It's okay. 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:07.240 When mood turns negative. There should be some more groundbreaking 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:09.960 horror stuff on the way for you. I mean you 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.960 you're mentioning Disney movies. Um, the comeback of Disney right now. 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:18.040 You mentioned earlier that the stock market was probably the 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:21.040 best expression of current mood. So if you look at 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:24.520 the US market, which seems to be reaching new highs 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:29.160 um every week, now, how do you square that with 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:32.360 what's been going on in politics? Because when we look 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:35.240 at the US elections, UM and a lot of the 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:39.159 sort of populist political issues happening right now, it seems 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:40.840 like there is a lot of anger out there, and 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:43.520 there is a lot of uncertainty. There's definitely a lot 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:46.320 of political polarization going on in the US. And in fact, 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:49.240 my colleague here at the Institute, Robert Fulsome, did a 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:52.639 study called y Trump Why Now. It came out in 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:57.600 March of during the primaries, and one of the interesting 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:01.359 things about the primaries is that the candidates on the 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:04.520 Republican side, at least initially didn't take Trump very seriously. 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:07.639 Jeb Bush spent all kinds of money attacking the other 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.920 challengers and basically figured here this Trump guile peter out 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:15.560 on his own. But Robert looked at the market and 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:19.040 reached a different conclusion. Now, what we like to do 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:20.679 with the market is we like to look at at 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.000 a nominal terms. We also like to look at it 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:25.399 in real money terms. And if you look at the 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:27.679 market in real terms, that you find is that the 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:31.560 all time high in the US was and we've been 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:34.720 in a large degree bear market ever since. Now since 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:38.520 index has been rallying, we think it's a bear market rally. 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:40.240 But once you start to see, okay, well, we've got 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:42.439 nominal markets at all time high as you've got the 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:44.800 market in real terms, in this bear market rally, it 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:46.879 makes sense that you'd still see a little bit more 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.840 of a mix, and the polarization that we saw in 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.840 the in the election certainly makes sense in that context. 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:56.679 And we think that if we see the nominal indexes 0:19:56.920 --> 0:20:00.280 joining the real money indexes on the downside, that's when 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:06.120 what seems like intense polarization now will get even more. So. Yeah, 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:08.719 it sort of reminds me of one of my favorite charts, 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.080 which is just the the Dow Jones divided by the 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:16.000 price of gold, because it's sort of to me, is 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.440 like a measure of like, you know, stocks are, there's 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:23.840 a sort of investment in human capital, cooperation, society progressing, 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:26.919 and gold is a rock or a metal or something 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:29.600 that has no real productive value. And what you see 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.400 is sort of as you say, in two thousand, that 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.639 ratio hit incredible heights and we're still not anywhere in 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:39.480 that declined as you said through two thousand eleven was 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.600 when that ratio hit it's low, and we're still not 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:46.919 anywhere near the old highs in terms of uh, you know, 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:50.919 that ratio signaling at least you know, relative to about 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.440 you know, fifteen or twenty years ago. People are still 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:57.080 really into rocks relative to humans. That's right. It's interesting 0:20:57.080 --> 0:20:59.760 to look at markets priced and gold. We we like 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:01.760 to look at Dow Gold for sure. In my colleague 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:03.640 Allen Hall has just been doing some work recently where 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:07.280 he's looking at lots of other national stock indexes priced 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.320 in gold. And what you find when you do that 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:15.399 is that the rally in the U S sinceleven is 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:18.159 one of the longer rallies when you look at these 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:22.080 gold denominated indexes globally, a market like Russia has seen 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:25.280 its nominally in real money indexes falling in tandem since 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:27.840 about two thousand eight. And when you look at the 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:31.320 social manifestations that are going on in Russia, suddenly it 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:33.399 starts to make a little bit more sense. I mean, 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:37.080 back in two thousand seven, Russia was the darling of 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:41.120 of of investors. Vladimir Putin was Times Man of the Year. 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:44.520 They were part of this assortment of brick countries along 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:47.560 with Brazil, Indya and China, where there was allegedly huge 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:53.240 investment opportunities out there. And in that environment, Alan said, look, 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:57.840 there's so much optimism surrounding Russia right now. This is 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:01.479 very likely going to be a peak in the Russian markets, 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:04.320 and use the Elliot wave model to to verify that analysis, 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:07.080 and said, folks, we've got a major bear market coming 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:10.760 in Russian. When we see that that change in psychology 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:13.520 manifest in the market, that's when it's definitely time to 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:17.640 be on the lookout for a military resurgence from from 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:20.359 that country. And after the market declined, there was the 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:24.639 invasion of Ukraine and and we've seen just just this 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:28.639 resurgence and militarism coming coming from Russian And once you 0:22:28.720 --> 0:22:31.000 understand the psychology over there in the context of this 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:34.000 long term negative mood trend, it starts to make make 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:36.960 a lot more sense. Matt. That kind of reminds me. 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:40.600 I wanted to ask how much um analysis you do 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:45.000 on non US, non European countries and how you actually 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:48.840 do that analysis, Like would you gauge social mood in 0:22:49.320 --> 0:22:52.600 an emerging market like India or Vietnam And how does 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:56.399