Posted on 02/01/2007 8:51:42 AM PST by dirkdavies68
Time's Person of the Year Forecasts Market Turns
1/24/2007
Watched any YouTube vids or surfed the internet lately? If so, you, as an internet user, are fulfilling your duty as Time magazine's Person of the Year. Interestingly, the magazine's 2006 cover also fulfilled its function of reflecting social mood by choosing 'You, the internet user."
We view social mood as the precursor to how people behave collectively and how the financial markets behave. That is, when people go from pessimism to optimism, they buy more stock, and the markets tend to rise in a bullish trend; when they go from optimism to pessimism, they sell more stock, and the markets tend to fall in a bearish trend. As Bob Prechter's most recent Theorist points out, a general interest magazine with a large circulation like Time often zeroes in on the zeitgeist just before it changes. Read more about this socionomic snapshot written by one of our senior analysts in the Socionomics Institute.
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Excerpted from The Elliott Wave Theorist, published January 17, 2007
For its 2006 “Person of the Year” cover, Time magazine this year chose no one person in particular but an abstract internet user: “You.” Immediately we recognized that this cover, celebrating all of humanity, echoes the “I love everyone” spirit identified in Bob Prechter's “Popular Culture and the Stock Market” in 1985 as a hallmark of positive social mood peaks. Then we read the following lines in an Associated Press report:
It was not the first time the magazine went away from naming an actual person for its 'Person of the Year.' In 1966, the 25-and-under generation was cited; in 1975, American women were named; and in 1982, the computer was chosen.
What do you know? This chart shows that each of the years in which the magazine refrained from identifying a particular person or persons happens to have followed (by no more than 12 months) a turning point in social mood. [Read more below the chart.]
The 1966 cover, at another social mood peak, was an expression of inclusionism and a focus on youth. As for the 1975 winner, as Prechter’s Perspective noted, “In every field, women gain dominance in bear markets.” The 1975 cover, published one year after the December 1974 bottom in the stock market, highlighted this theme.
"Popular Culture and the Stock Market" also observed that some of the music of the late 1970s reflected an “I hate everybody” sentiment and thus signaled a social mood bottom and a major buy signal. Time’s cover of 1982, a subtler expression of negative mood, did the same thing. The choice of an inanimate object, the personal computer -- at the end of the 16-year bear market in inflation-adjusted terms -- appears to reflect the mood of alienation that attends major trends in negative mood, as the magazine’s editors were apparently unable to reach a consensus on any member of humanity.
Without doing it consciously, Time’s editors in 2006 may once again be reflecting the mood of a significant market turn—this time a peak—by honoring the collective “You.”
Read the complete report and more here
Prechter forecast the greatest depression ever about 3-4 years ago...
And looking at the charts, the magazine covers preluded great bull markets.
What a stupid theory made to make a national rag look more important than it is.
I thought the conference winning the Superbowl game forcast the market direction for the year? and here I learn it is Time Magazine that controls the market.
Not if you've already pulled off the stunt of making them believe you're a serious person.
No, it's hemlines silly!
Will you join us tomorrow in Stamford at the corner of Broad and Bedford in front of Furguson Library to counter the Peace movement? 11:30 AM. Bring signs.
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