Smurfs, Snooki, and Sly Stallone have each rung the opening bell since the last financial crisis
Reuters
Who to blame for the economy's troubles? Back in the halcyon days of last week, when the stock market was deflating but not cratering, Twitter funny man and advertising director Tim Siedell had one suggestion: "The Dow has lost nearly 1,000 points since the Smurfs rang the opening bell, in case we're looking to pin this on someone," he tweeted.
Measure from the close yesterday's market, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more points than any day since the Dec. 1, 2008—the height of the credit crisis—and we find that the index has actually shed 1,429.51 since some costumed blue people, promoting new film The Smurfs, rang the New York Stock Exchange's opening bell on July 29.
Of course, it isn't fair to blame the Smurfs. The market is a complex creature, arguably more influenced by factors such as downgrading of U.S. debt than any bad cosmic juju associated with cartoon characters. Or is it? We scanned through Reuter's photo stream of who's rung the bell since the Dec. 1, 2008, marking down the dates when the deed was done by pop-culture notables—foreign bank chiefs and domestic corporate CEOs therefore excluded. More often than not, those days saw the market lose points, despite the fact that the entire period from saw about a rise in the Dow from the 8,000s to the 12,000s until the most recent slump. The non-rigorous, non-scientific findings below:
Prices source: Yahoo Finance
Is there a pattern? Did celebrities cause the latest crisis? Or at least: Wouldn't it be nice to think it was them, and not the failure of Western political and economic systems?
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