A very good negative indicator for any business is, when the CEO appears on front page of the Time magazine. The most famous example was Bezos, who was the Man of the Year in 1999, smiling crazily on the front cover. In the following 2 years AMZN lost more than 90% of its value. So when GOOG was tanking 2 days ago, I said, oh no! The curse striked again! You guessed it right, Larry and Sergey and the CEO were on the cover just the week before on the Feb. 20th issue. Actually, when I saw that cover I said to myself, it is time to short GOOG again.... So the trading strategy is very simple. Just keep an eye on Time, and anytime a CEO, CFO or anybody with a business is on the cover, short the hell out of that company....
Good point . Mainstream magazine covers do seem to be a kiss of death . That method was written about in "The Traders Edge" by Grant Noble. It seems to be a good contrarian indicator. I have seen it work many times.
It looks like it works even for politicans. Guess who was the Person of the Year in 2004 and 14 months after that cover having the worst approval ratings ever.... Also for sportsmen. Bode Miller on the cover just before the Olympics... The last business person on the cover before the GOOG boys was Gates (getting the Person of the year in December). Stock was at $28. A month later MSFT hit $26... So if you want to stay successful, when Time magazine calls for an interview and photoop, just say NO!!!
This is getting funny. Gates was also on the cover on May 23rd, 2005 when the new Xbox was released. Stockprice: $26. A month later: $24.5...