Correlation Exploration

May 28, 2011 1 min read

Google Correlate has a feature where you draw a curve along a timeline, then click “Correlate.” You get back a list of search terms that varied in popularity by that same curve.

Below is the result for the first curve I drew.

Screenshot of Google Correlate showing search terms correlated with a hand-drawn time series. The top result is “t-mobile phones” with a correlation of 0.8355, followed by terms such as “southern honda powersports,” “thunderbird windows,” and “long clips.” Below the search terms, a line chart compares the drawn series with search activity for “t-mobile phones” from about 2003 to 2011.

If butter production in Bangladesh can be a leading indicator for the S&P 500, then I’ll allow that the above terms can be correlated.