Bankruptcy

Movies for the Coming Market Crash

By mcbride

This weekend, I watched a new movie, The Town, staring and directed by Ben Affleck.  It was a well done action/suspense movie!  Interestingly, however, it represents a shift in movies typical of a down market.  First, it is violent, especially for a non-horror movie.  Next, the bad guy is the good guy.  Third, (spoiler alert) the bad guy/good guy gets away.  The movie reflects public mood which in turn drives the market.  This phenomenon has been noted and researched by the folks at Elliottwave.  They produce a newsletter called The Socionomist, which tracks many of these social trends and how the markets are impacted by the same trends. 

In one such report, the authors note that down market movies include: the gangster movies of the 1930’s, horror films such as Dracula and Frankenstein. “The years around 1932, the bottom of the 1929-1932 crash, saw the release of not only such seminal horror films as Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932), The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), and King Kong (1933), but also envelope-pushing Crime/Gangster films such as Public Enemy (1931), I Am a Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932), and Scarface: The Shame of the Nation (1932), which the website describes as ‘one of the boldest, most potent, raw and violently brutal gangster-crime films ever made.’”  They track the rise of “film noir” from the early 1940’s until 1945, when the mood shifts and markets rise until 1966, a market top. 

“The four bear-market genres reached a peak in the years around 1973, in the middle of the 1966-1982 correction. The Exorcist (1973), which remains one of the few Horror films ever nominated for Best Picture, and Jaws (1975) were among the first blockbuster fright films. The Godfather (1972), Serpico (1973), Badlands (1973), The Godfather, Part II (1974), Death Wish (1974), and the Dirty Harry ’series’ (1971-76) were popular Crime/Gangster films of the period. “Post (or Neo)-Noir” films included Chinatown (1974) and The Conversation (1974). The Disaster films Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Towering Inferno (1974), Earthquake (1974), and The Hindenburg (1975) satisfied the public’s need to witness vicariously misfortune on a massive scale.”  This stage of down market movies then ceased as the mood shifted and markets rose in the 1980’s.  The key here is to watch as more movies come out which fit this category of horror/violence and then see if indeed the markets are falling as well.  Quotes are taken from an article by Mark Galasiewski which originally appeared in The Elliott Wave Theorist in January 2007.  Here is a link to The Socionomic site:  http://www.socionomics.net/ . 

Here is a link to a brief  documentary which ties social mood as reflected in the movies, among other things, to the financial markets: http://www.socionomics.net/history/  (free once you sign up) . 

Here is a link to information about the movie: http://www.themovieinsider.com/m3715/the-town/ .

Michael

Full post as published by Texas Lawyer Blog on September 27, 2010 (boomark / email).