{maybe this belongs in the Finance/Investment thread, but for now I will put it here}
Markets crash every time Oreo releases an even greater-stuffed cookie
The increasingly-depraved debuts of Oreos with more stuffing indicate unstable amounts of greed and leverage in the system, serving as an immediate indicator of that the makings of a market crash are in place. Conversely, when the Oreo team reduces the amount of icing in their treats, markets tend to have great bull runs until once again society demands to push the boundaries of how much stuffing is possible.
List of Oreo varieties - Wikipedia List of stock market crashes and bear markets - Wikipedia
1974: Double Stuf Oreo released. Dow Jones crashes 45%. FTSE drops 73%.
1987: Big Stuf Oreo released. Black Monday, a 20% single-day crash and a following bear market.
1991: Mini Oreo introduced. Smaller icing ratios coincide with the 1991 Japanese asset price bubble, confirming the correlation works both ways and a reduction of Oreo icing may be a potential solution to preventing a future crash.
2011: Triple Double Oreo introduced. S&P drops 21% in a 5-month bear market
2015: Oreo Thins introduced. A complete lack of icing causes an unprecedented bull run in the S&P for years
2019: The Most Stuf Oreo briefly introduced. Pulled off the shelf before any major market damage could occur.
2021: The Most Stuf Oreo reintroduced. Market response: ???
Remember, Freakonomics taught us that correlation is basically the same as causality, right?
Unless you intend to bet based on Oreo introductions I think this is a great example of why it’s important to draw the correlation =/> causation distinction