What Google Trends Reveal About the State of America’s Torn Society

By Nicholas Colas of Convergex

E Pluribus Google (Trends)

If you want to know what’s really on the minds of the American population since the Election, just look at Google search trends.  For example, did the Dow hitting 20,000 last week spark a lot of interest in the stock market or that venerable measure?  Not really – searches for “Stock market” and “Dow Jones” are the same now as last year at this time.  What DID force public attention on those terms was (you guessed it) the US Election. That event increased searches by +400%, as investors wondered about the effects of President Trump’s surprise win on capital markets.  Equities have, if course, done well since then.  But… won’t all the protests against the new President serve to dampen his effectiveness?  Maybe not.  Google searches for “Protest Trump” are already a running at a fraction of their volumes immediately post-Election, although searches for general “Protest” are still equal to levels from the week of November 7th.  Also in this note: Google search trends related to the US labor market, asking for a raise (the right way), and how to move to Canada.

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“If Donald Trump wins, I will move to Canada!”  That was a popular refrain in some circles just before the US Election last November.  Searches on Google for “Move to Canada” were up 20-fold over the week of November 7th, supporting the notion that some citizens were exploring the possibility leaving the US.  A deeper look at the data, courtesy of Google Trends (www.google.com/trends) gives us some more information about this topic:

• The “Move to Canada” trend was short lived. By late November 2016, searches for that phrase had returned to their typical pre-election run rate.
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• Interest among Americans in moving north tends to run along Presidential election cycles, with bumps in November 2004, 2008, 2012. This cycle was, however, the largest surge of interest in the last 12 years (essentially Google Trend’s entire historical record).
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• The US citizens typically (i.e. not just around elections) most interested in moving to Canada are not left leaning bi-coastal hipsters; rather, they are simply people who live in US states that border Canada. Currently, the people of Montana, Idaho, Alaska and Washington punch “Move to Canada” into Google more than all other US states.
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• As an aside, “Move to Mexico” is nowhere near as popular among American Google users as “Move to Canada”. Over the past year, for example, searches for the latter outnumber the former by three or four to one.

So have those Americans who searched for new homes in Canada decided to stay and protest the new administration as members of the loyal opposition?  Perhaps…  Here is some Google Trend data on that topic:

• Google searches for “Protest Trump” spiked around the Election, as one would expect. To give some sense of scale, however, search volumes on Google for “Starbucks” were 3x higher than “Protest Trump” and those for ‘iPhone” were 10x higher during the week of 11/7/2016. That’s not to minimize the scale of social discontent, but merely to put it in context with some common searches.
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• “Protest Trump” searches had another peak around the Inauguration, but volumes there were less than half those from Election week.  For the most recent week, searches for that term are only 32% of those from November.
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• The 5 states that most commonly search for “Protest Trump”: Washington, Vermont, DC, New York, and Rhode Island.  As far as cities go, the top 5 are Portland (OR), Seattle, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
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• Make the search term more generic – just “Protest” – and a different story emerges. Here, search volumes peaked just last week.  There was a bump around the Election, of course, Google users are looking to “Protest” now just as much as last November.

• The states with the largest interest in “Protest” are: North Dakota (likely pipeline related), Washington, Vermont, DC and South Dakota (also pipeline).  By city, Oakland, Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis and San Francisco make up the top 5.
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• Why worry about protests?  It is all part of our “Trump on, Trump off” market construct.  As long as equity markets believe President Trump will be able to execute on his plans for lower business/individual taxes, infrastructure spending and regulatory reform, we have a good chance of seeing higher equity prices.  But if large public protests develop, perhaps capital markets will lose some of that conviction.  We don’t have enough experience with a President Trump to know how that dynamic plays out over time, but it is worth watching now.

How about the recent news that the Dow had finally hit 20,000?  Did that spark broad interest in the stock market or the Dow Jones Industrial Average?  The answer:

• American public interest in searches for the “Stock market” and “Dow Jones” has picked up since 2015 by almost 30% as compared to 2012-2014. A piece of this is the incremental interest when market volatility hits (August 2015 and November 2016 are the best examples).
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• That said, breaching the 20,000 mark did nothing for Google search volumes for either term. This may not be “The most hated rally of all time”, as much of the 2009-2016 move was called, but it may well be “the most ignored rally of all time”.

You can also use Google Trends to analyze the US labor market.  Five points on that topic:

• Don’t worry too much about wage inflation. Google users are no more likely to be researching how to ask their boss for more money now versus a year ago.  We used “Ask for a raise” and “get a raise” search phrases to assess levels of general popular interest.
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• And even if they do ask, related Google searches tell us they may not be going about it correctly. Consider that “How to ask for a raise email” and “via email” are popular variants of “ask for a raise”.
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• When you look to see which US states have an above-average number of Google users intent on negotiating for more money at work, the answer is not surprising: New York, California, Illinois and Texas. The only city that shows up on the Google data as statistically significant: New York.  Bottom line: wages may see pressure where large urban areas with predominately college-educated workers dominate the local economy, but not for the country as a whole.
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• Getting a new job is a common New Year’s resolution, and this January saw a record number of Google users actually search for “New job” the week of January 1. This could lead to more changes in the US labor force this year if workers actually follow through on their goal of landing a new position.
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• Searches for “Find a job” and “get a job” are lower in 2016 than 2012, but largely similar to 2015. That’s surprising, given that the official government data shows a decline in unemployment from 6.3% in Q1 2015 to just 4.7% in Q4 2016. After all, if there are fewer people unemployed, why wouldn’t search counts decline modestly as well?

To sum up: Google Trends tell us that there isn’t enough attention focused on the US stock market to be worried that we are in a “Bubble”.   That’s the good news.  On the other side of the coin, there’s a lot of attention sloshing around elsewhere.  As long as markets stay focused on the potential upsides of a Trump administration, the stealth rally can continue.  Inevitably, however, there will be some lapses.  We haven’t seen one yet; I am sure we will.