Will Time Magazine’s ‘How Will Street Won’ signify as the Magazine Cover Indicator?

This is Time Magazine’s cover for the September 23rd issue. (hat tip EPJ)

Part of the marketing scheme of magazine publications have been to design covers which reflects on the popular or fashionable theme. 

With reference to the marketplace, when a popular investment theme graces the cover, they could be symptoms of sentiment excesses or the “crowded trade” phenomenon that could be indicative of inflection points: And so the magazine cover indicator.

Such indicators may not be foolproof, but current Time magazine covers as 'magazine cover indicators' have, thus far, been "IN the money".

I pointed to the Time Magazine’s depiction of ‘end of the euro’ in November of 2011.

Three months after the Time's November issue, the Euro rallied. (chart from yahoo)

A more interesting account has been the Time's May 2013 issue extolling the supposed heroics of Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe adaption of bold inflationist policies (The title of my post: Here comes Super Abenomics) 

Just a few days after, the Nikkei went into a tailspin and crashed into bear market territory in about three weeks. Yet today the Nikkei continues to flag marked by lower highs and lower lows. (chart from yahoo)

Will the Time’s magazine cover for September 2013 be ominous for US stocks?

Time Magazine and Philippine Elections

For the politicized public, when a politician gets featured in Time magazine, this is something worth babbling about.

But like all magazine indicators such publicity tend to focus on populist sentiment and the biases held by the editors.

But the fact is, the prominence offered by gracing the cover of Time Magazine doesn't imply impeccability.

Proof?

Just take a look at some of the record of Time's Person of the Year.

Adolf Hitler Time's Person of the Year 1939

Joseph Stalin, Time's Person of the Year twice in 1939 and 1940

Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini Time Person of the Year 1980

You can read the complete list here

One more thing, if magazine cover occasionally work for markets as contrarian indicators, applied to the local elections, could this imply a popularity peak (or possible loss from the "magazine curse") for the top running local candidate?

[See earlier post: Media Indicators And Market Reversals]

This should be a good running test on the supposed predictive prowess of magazine cover indicators.