Condor Options

So, the Guardian has a little piece out today on the dangers of “low beat variance” in pop songs:

According to findings by Phil Maymin, professor of finance and risk engineering at New York University, the more regular the beat on Billboard’s top singles, the more volatile the American markets. After studying decades of Billboard’s Hot 100 hits, Maymin found that songs with low “beat variance” had an inverse correlation with market turbulence. Which is to say, the more regular the song, the crazier the stock market. [link]

And, as mentioned there, the strange thing is that the music seems to be a leading rather than lagging indicator – it’s not like everybody takes huge losses and then only wants to hear steady music, but the other way around.  More from Phil Maymin here, SSRN paper here.

Love Lockdown and Heartless are both in the top 10, so watch out.