In politics as in equity trading, you bet on momentum. So the real story coming out of Iowa last night wasn’t Hillary’s razor thin victory or Donald’s fall from grace (foreshadowed in last weeks blog). I predict that Bernie Sanders and Marco Rubio will steal the headlines in New Hampshire and South Carolina. I’m no political pundit. I analyze social sentiment data for a living and my data says you can bet on Sanders and Rubio to surge while Hillary and Donald will continue struggle. Bernie Sanders won a social media landslide in Iowa, which was indicative of his closing the gap to a virtual tie with Hillary among voters.
Social sentiment is highly predictive of behavior. We see it in the equities market every day. People who post their intent are much more likely to act on it. You could see momentum building for both Sanders and Rubio in the days before the caucus simply by what people were posting about them. Bernie Sanders won Iowa in a landslide and captured momentum heading into New Hampshire and South Carolina. He won by nearly 5 times his next closest competitor Marco Rubio who was also a sentiment winner.
With our proprietary S-Factors we can rank regardless of party. Let’s look at the rank order based on Twitter Buzz – our proprietary S-Score. This ranking looks at the 24 hour Twitter conversation relative to the prior 20 day Twitter conversation for each candidate. It’s answering the question: Who received the biggest boost from Iowa and who was hurt the most? Any negative value means the current buzz is more negative than normal and the significance of the number indicates how negative. For example: The Carly Fiorina conversation is 1.63 standard deviations more negative than normal.
By ranking based on SMA proprietary metrics you can see that Bernie is clearly separating himself from the pack. He is located in the far upper right corner clearly distancing himself. Donald Trump is smack in the middle. In the chart below you get a clear picture of Bernie’s Landslide Sentiment Victory, which as sentiment predictability goes, suggests that he will continue to be a tough opponent for Hillary.
To learn more about SMA capabilities contact us at: ContactUs@SocialMarketAnalytics.com
Thanks,
Joe
