Nouriel Roubini Popularity Index Sent Bearish Signal on Monday

The last time we wrote about Nouriel Roubini’s popularity was at the peak of the stock market. Roubini’s popularity hit multi-year lows just 3 months ago. Things have changed dramatically since then. Roubini’s popularity has been recovering at a rapid rate. Between May 22nd and July 24th Roubini’s popularity increased by 44%. This is a very bearish sign for the stock market. (You can see the details about Roubini Sentiment Indicator here)

We use Google Trends to track Roubini’s popularity and Google releases this data with a 1-week lag. On Monday they released the data point which revealed that Roubini’s popularity jumped by nearly 30% on July 24th compared to July 17th. This is very interesting. Whenever people start searching for Roubini’s pessimistic predictions /comments the volatility in the stock market increases and we see declines in the market indices. Our statistical tests showed  that this is no coincidence. Roubini’s popularity will probably keep increasing after the sharp decline in markets during the past few days. We will keep you updated.