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VIDEO: How Social Mood Trends Define Popular Culture
Studies of the stock market and of trends in popular attitudes support the premise that trends in aggregate stock prices directly reflect the mood and mood changes of investors collectively, and by extension, society at large.
The stock market is the optimum place to study mood change because it is the only intersection of mass behavior that offers specific, detailed, and voluminous numerical data. It was with such data that R.N. Elliott discovered the Wave Principle, the analytical method which reveals that mass mood changes are natural, rhythmic and precise. The stock market is a literal drawing of how mass mood unfolds.
In the following two clips from The Socionomics Institute's documentary History's Hidden Engine, you'll see how extremes in popular cultural trends coincide with extremes in stock prices: they peak and trough coincidentally in their reflection of the popular mood.
Regarding music, for example, Robert Prechter said "You can almost hear the Dow going up and down over the airwaves." In this three minute video montage, see how music trends from the Beatles to Jimi Hendrix to Britney Spears reveal a startling connection between pop culture and finance:
At the theaters, Disney released another adaptation of Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" this year that many parents found too dark and scary for kids. Disney's iconic Mickey Mouse himself got an edgier makeover recently. What could be behind Disney's new marketing strategy? Successful Disney films and themes have more in common with horror movies and dark themes than you might think. This three minute clip from History's Hidden Engine explains that connection -- and why it's as relevant to stock markets and broad social trends as it is to movies:
Watch the full 90-minute documentary, History's Hidden Engine, online right now. In just 59 minutes and with the help of pop songs, news footage and cultural images, you'll see how social mood drives trends in movies, music, fashion, economics, politics, the media, and even the stock market.