Can Shoes Tell you Anything About the Stock Market?
Cash-strapped consumers
have decided they don’t need a second pair.
(By Charlie Neibergall — Associated Press)
This is a story probably better told by Bob Prechter at Elliott Wave International but I ran ahead of him because I found it interesting that a mainstream economics writer connected a trendy item to social mood and, by extension, the market and the economy. Here’s the lead:
Crocs were born of the economic boom.
The colorful foam clogs appeared in 2002, just as the country was recovering from a recession. Brash and bright, they were a cheap investment (about $30) that felt good and promised to last forever…Then the boom times went bust, and Crocs went to the back of the closet.
Crocs not only had a look, they had a story. In 2002, three longtime friends from Boulder, Colo., got hold of technology developed in a Canadian laboratory in 1999 that created a lightweight, antimicrobial foam. They called it Croslite and molded it into a boating and water-sports shoe they named “Beach.” The rest of the Washington Post story talks about the giddy expansion of the company and when its executive started to get the hint that the boom times were over.
I like the part where the writer anticipates that those brightly colored Crocs may become a nostalgia item in some distant future. Maybe that’s a tell – when you feel like pulling those pink Crocs out of the back of the closet it’s time to go 100% into stocks.
Source: Washington Post
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