Are we in a recession? Is a recession coming? These are the types of things people search for on the internet during times of economic uncertainty.
In fact, as our featured chart above shows, when people have historically been nervous about the economy, they are usually right. Google Trend searches for the word “recession” tend to spike when the economy has historically undergone sustained negative economic growth (the grey-shaded areas on the chart represent actual NBER-defined recessions).
But the weird thing about the past year and a half is that despite a record amount of search interest for the word “recession,” we never actually experienced one. It could still be coming, but the economy has stayed quite resilient so far.
As for the stock market, while it did sell-off in 2022, it has since regained a lot of ground. It likely comes as no surprise that this has coincided with a dramatic fall in the volume of searches for a recession.
The bottom line? The general population is no longer concerned about a potential recession, and that suggests a positive environment for stocks going forward.
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Indices mentioned are unmanaged, do not incur fees, and cannot be invested into directly.
Past performance does not guarantee future results.