With stock markets experiencing a rally, it is perhaps unsurprising to also see a recovery in internet searches that contain the words “stock price”. The following chart shows search term breadth for “stock price”. This metric reports the share of all searches that include a keyword or words. As you can see, stock price searches are experiencing a recovery.

The following table shows the top search terms that included the words “stock price” in the past four weeks:

In the past four weeks, most of the traffic from searches that include the words “stock price” were going to the Business and Finance parent industry: 30% went to Stocks and Shares sub-category and 24% to Business Information. Share of US Internet visits to Stocks and Shares websites was up 12% over the past four weeks and up 9% to Business Information websites. The Hitwise Stocks and Shares industry includes websites that provide research and information on stocks and shares as well as trading sites. To better understand what is driving the growth in visits, I created a custom category of Brokerage Websites – websites that offering stock trading. This custom category has seen visits increase 19% in the past four weeks. This coincides with the increase in trading and the stock market rally.
Analysis of HItwise Demographic data indicates that the old and the wealthy are driving the rally. Internet users over 55 years of age made up just over half of visits to Brokerage websites in the past four weeks.This group was 145% more likely to be on Brokerage Websites than average. Also, those earning a household income of over $150,000 were 13% more likely to be on Brokerage Websites than average.
Whether this is a “Seinfeld Stock Rally” (i.e. based on nothing) or whether it will persist is yet to be seen. What is sure is that those with the most to gain are back in the game.