Stock prices are likely to be among the prices that are relatively vulnerable to purely social movements because there is no accepted theory by which to understand the worth of stocks….investors have no model or at best a very incomplete model of behavior of prices, dividend, or earnings, of speculative assets.  – Prof. Robert Shiller

When CEOs buy Super Bowl ads to move their stock price, that is the definition of a “social movement.”    Wonder if we will  see Bitcoin ads today?  Ya’ think?

Super Bowl XXXIV was dominated by dot.com ads just a little over one month before the NASDAQ collapsed.

This from Wikipedia,

Super Bowl XXXIV (played in January 2000) featured 14 advertisements from 14 different dot-com companies, each of which paid an average of $2.2 million per spot.  In addition, five companies that were founded before the dot-com bubble also ran tech-related ads, for a grand total of 22 different dot-com ads. These ads amounted to nearly 20 percent of the 61 spots available,  and $44 million in advertising.  In addition to ads which ran during the game, several companies also purchased pre-game ads, most of which are lesser known. All of the publicly held companies which advertised saw their stocks slump after the game as the dot-com bubble began to rapidly deflate

The sheer amount of dot-com-related ads was so unusual that Super Bowl XXXIV has been widely been referred to as the “Dot-Com Super Bowl”,and it is often used as a high-water mark for the dot-com bubble.  Of these companies, 4 are still active, 5 were bought by other companies, and the remaining 5 are defunct or of unknown status.[when?]  – Wikipedia

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Here’s an ad from Super Bowl XXXIV for Pets.com.   The stock price eventually went to zero.

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Jeff Bezos comes out today and stars in a Super Bowl Amazon ad.  Great company, not going to zero, but……hmmm.  Makes us kind of wonder.

Political Movement

Furthermore, stock prices have become sort of a political movement with the POTUS tweets that tout the $8 trillion increase in market cap (need confirmation) since the 2016 election.  It’s all theoretical wealth unless cashed especially  in a momentum market where more new money has to come in than the profits being taken out.

If you can believe it, we even heard whispers on Friday the market is being pushed lower by political partisans.  Are you freakin’ kidding me?

Danger, Will Robinson, danger!

The stock market being weaponized for partisan politics?   What has happened to this country?   God help us.