{"id":602,"date":"2023-01-09T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-09T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/why-the-s-and-p-500-isnt-safe-and-never-has-been\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T20:26:30","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T20:26:30","slug":"why-the-s-and-p-500-isnt-safe-and-never-has-been","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/why-the-s-and-p-500-isnt-safe-and-never-has-been\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the S&P 500 Isn\u2019t \u201cSafe\u201d (and Never Has Been)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Take a look at this chart. Can you guess what it\u2019s measuring?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Is it the S&P 500\u2019s performance over time? <\/p>\n

Close! It represents searches<\/em><\/span><\/a> for the term \u201cS&P 500\u201d over time. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Why am I looking at this? Well, mostly because I don\u2019t have other empirical ways to get a pulse check on public awareness of a phenomenon beyond Google Trends data. I\u2019m using increasing search volume as a proxy for public interest in the S&P 500<\/strong> (the index<\/span><\/a> that measures the performance of the 500-odd largest American companies by market capitalization).<\/p>\n

Now, we could explain away this increase a few different ways:<\/p>\n