Fun with Google Trends

[EricPhan]

I decided to play around with Google Trends just now to see what value search volume has in helping us figure out what's going on.

Below are searches with peaks of interest

First, a disclaimer - I had originally linked to the direct images generated by the searches. As I previewed the post, some had disappeared. I replaced them and checked again, but to my chagrin, more had vanished. Faced with a prospect of broken links (no good for you guys), I saved, uploaded, and relinked all the charts. The preview is currently showing the charts x2; not sure why.

Housing bubble



The real estate bubble chart looks similar:



Gold bubble doesn't even register before the end of 2007. Note that the peak matches the most recent high in early December.



Then again, deflation fears were paramount in late 2008; this didn't materialize (as itulip has maintained all along):



I was surprised to see that inflation searches haven't spiked. The news volume was highest in mid-2008 amidst the oil spike



Still not much attention to peak oil:



Unemployment searches double starting in late 2008:



Practically no searches for "China bubble" until mid-2009:



Dubai bubble seems to be a one-time spike:



Greece debt looks similar to Dubai:



PIIGS



*Yawn* subprime is so 2007/2008



Interest in gold bullion peaked amidst the onset of the fall 2008 crash



Silver bullion was similar except for an early 2006 spike (due to SLV launch?)



Looks like some people were interested in buying amidst the blood in the street. Chart is for "buy stocks"



Then again, more were looking to "sell stocks" (7.5x the baseline vs 4x baseline of "buy stocks")



The searches for recession peak right around EJ's call



"us default" becomes a meme from mid-2008 onwards



"dollar crash" shows up a little earlier, though:



"currency crisis" emerges around this time as well:



Hyperinflation chart:



Like subprime, bank failure is no big deal now



Short stocks explodes in early Sept 09. A profitable course if taken.



"aaa rating" results:



If EJ is right in his 10/29/09 post, expect another spike in stimulus searches second quarter 2010.



What's interesting is how many of these searches coincided with tops. Wisdom of the crowd at work?

Please add any interesting charts you find!

I'm going to make another thread about this in Rant & Rave for other searches.

[Slimprofits]

Re: Fun with Google Trends

I was surprised to see that inflation searches haven't spiked. The news volume was highest in mid-2008 amidst the oil spike

That's because you're thinking like a trader or an analyst and not a regular person.

Most regular people don't follow the oil price, but they drive to work every day and pass hundreds of gasoline price signs. And they fill up once or twice a week.

Reality matches the graph - the spike during the Summer of 2008 was the only time in recent history that gas prices were a common topic of conversation.

[Ben]

Re: Fun with Google Trends

The "china bubble" scale is 10x most of the other graphs - that's a lot of interest

[EricPhan]

Re: Fun with Google Trends

Ben, I think the scale is in comparison to the average baseline of the searches. A hot fad with little previous interest can thus get something like 100x the usual amount of searches.

[Ben]

Re: Fun with Google Trends

avg baseline for that keyword?

[EricPhan]

Re: Fun with Google Trends

avg baseline for that keyword?

yep, that's correct

[Anon21456]

Re: Fun with Google Trends

" Looks like some people were interested in buying amidst the blood in the street. Chart is for "buy stocks""

hahaha It might have been the Cramer effect...

[bpr]

Re: Fun with Google Trends

Then again, more were looking to "sell stocks" (7.5x the baseline vs 4x baseline of "buy stocks")

Careful how you interpret these. I think the scale is logarithmic, but I may be wrong. The increase in "sell stocks," may have been proportionally larger, but far more were looking to "buy stocks." To put some perspective on the volume of different searches, see this graph:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=china...ate=all&sort=0

Note that it's always best to put the least searched-for term first, as Trends reads that as the baseline term.