Socio Times interprets the daily news in socionomic terms. Socionomics is the study of social mood, the self-regulating law of social progress and regress. Socionomists relate cultural phenomena to the stock market because it is one field of mass behavior where detailed and voluminous data exist. These data first revealed the patterned form of social mood, which R.N. Elliott discovered and named the Wave Principle in the 1930s.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Robert Prechter proposed a socionomic hypothesis, that the Wave Principle regulating social mood ultimately shapes the dynamics underlying the character of human social action. In The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior and the New Science of Socionomics (1999), Prechter held that the rise and fall of social mood is the engine of history. When social mood becomes more positive, people buy stock, behave more productively, vote for incumbents, have more children, blow off fewer bombs and act peacefully toward their neighbors. Conversely, as social mood becomes more negative, people sell stock, behave less productively, vote for challengers, have fewer children, blow off more bombs and act belligerently toward their neighbors. The standard presumption is that social events buffet social mood relating to the economy, politics and culture. Socionomics proposes the opposite causality: that social mood regulates changes in social actions relating to the economy, politics and culture.

By tracking these correlations, and countless others, such as trends in art, music, entertainment and fashion, to name but a few, against the market and EWI’s socionomic forecasts, SocioTimes endeavors to expose the fallacy of the conventional view of causality and promote a deeper, day-to-day understanding of the true character of social change. If the 70-year history of the Wave Principle is any indication, it promises to be an entertaining and enlightening journey.

All comments are those of Peter Kendall, unless otherwise indicated. Peter Kendall is the co-editor of The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast.