Mood Moves Ritholtz

Trader and author of The Big Picture blog, Barry Ritholtz asked recently, "Here’s an interesting question: Are videos like this one more likely nearer to tops or bottoms?"

He was refering to "Sooner or Later," what he called "video of the year" by a group called N*E*R*D., which stands for "No one Ever Really Dies".  The group is a funk hip hop act, which not appropriately coincidentally brings together elements from each of our last three bear market episodes (the funk of the late 1970s and the rap revolution of the early 1990s).  In this N*E*R*D is very much a bear market band, like another, different alternative rock band Mars Volta, both of which were formed early in what will be known as the "awful aughts."

The song features the band amid the debris from the NYSE floor as traders stand around aghast and despairing over another day of losses on the stock market.  "It's Over, leave it ... It's over, leave it," croons the lead singer, as he wades through the crowd of brokers and traders, discarded trading slips raining down on all of them like tickertape at a sad parade.

My answer to Barry's question is obvious, by now.  What I'm paying attention to is the attention Mickey Rourk's redemption tale, "The Wrestler" is getting, and the likelihood that growing appreciation of that fable might be part of the cultural sign-making that shows we are ready to feel better about our prospects for the future.

That said, I suspect NERD is pointing more to a baby bottom than the big one.  After all, rich people taking in the shorts is still more ironic in popular culture than truly tragic.  Compare this to the rise of gangsta rap in the late 1980s and early 1990s or punk in the UK late in the 1970s.  In a way of saying, NERD's sweet crooning sounds too good for me to believe that we really feel that times are that bad.