📈 The Trend is Your Friend

Why What We Search For Is So Telling — Plus, Jerome "Too Slow" Powell Faces a Precarious Future and Earnings Season is Heating Up

Author

Katie Perry
April 19, 2025

Welcome to Tuesday Thursday Saturday! I share a snapshot of trending stories across business, tech, and culture three times a week. Subscribe and tell me what you want to hear about next! - KP

The Big Story: What We Lose When We Stop Searching

Lately, I’ve been feeling a little nostalgic about Google. I know that’s a weird take. We’re talking about one of the most cash-rich and powerful companies in the world (and in history). One that also took a massive L this week after losing a major antitrust battle.

Specifically, I have a soft spot for Google Search. My first job out of college was at an agency that was pioneering the early days of paid and organic search strategy. For those of you outside “the industry,” organic search is just a fancy term for what businesses do to ensure their companies appear in relevant searches — this could include changing the technical structure of website pages or using keywords or phrases in the page content to improve indexing.

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped back from the company in December 2019.

Google is so magical because of the data it captures. At any given moment in time, Google has a pulse on what’s on our collective minds. What we’re searching for tells us what we’re interested in, what we’re worried about. Every query is a breadcrumb, and, over time, these breadcrumbs build into patterns that mirror our culture, our economy, even our collective mood.

But the way we seek answers is changing.

Gen AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and even Google’s own product, Gemini, are shifting habits. Instead of “Googling it,” people seeking information are turning to a range of platforms to get context, interpretation, and synthesis, things that Google Search was never really built for. 

This shift is still early days but it is MAJOR. Google, a company whose entire ad business is predicated on capturing intent at the precise moment someone expresses it, must now pivot. They’ve been doing so with YouTube ads, display media, and other forms of advertising. And they also have their own AI product (Gemini), cloud business, and a host of other ways they make money.

But search advertising has historically been such a big, beautiful cash cow for them. Advertising is 75% of Google’s revenue — and while Alphabet doesn’t break out “search advertising” specifically in its financials, it’s likely a big chunk of it.

As Google makes moves to relevance in a world where behavior is moving from “I’ll find it myself” to “Tell me what I need to know,” I’ve been thinking a lot about my favorite by-product of Google Search — that being Google Trends.

Google Trends: See what we’re collectively searching in real-time.

If you’re not familiar, Google makes it possible to search aggregate and anonymized data to reveal people’s interest in certain topics over time. Trends is a free tool that anyone can access, and it is an absolute goldmine of insights. The magic of Google Search data is that it’s passive: it shows us what’s on everyone’s minds at a snapshot in time. Not what people say they are interested in, but what they are actually looking for.

You can see where I’m going with this. The more people bypass traditional search engines, the more opaque those behavioral signals become. Unless Gen AI companies commit to surfacing and open-sourcing usage patterns in a similarly transparent way, we’re going to lose a bit of the magic of Google Trends. Big bummer!

Alas, while we still have the data, I decided to run a little experiment.

Below are a few charts I pulled from Google Trends yesterday. I had some hypotheses about what people may search for in a wobbly economy. What you see here is a 2-year view. I want to show the impacts of the recent economic drama (Feb/March-today) but also give a broader context, e.g., “have we been here before?”

The data didn’t disappoint. Each trendline tells a story. Together, they illustrate the quiet ways economic stress shows up in our daily lives. 

First, I looked into asset class-related searches.

Gold trending up, crypto trending down!

Then, I was curious to see how “financial stress” terms were trending.

The sell 401K search stopped me in my tracks — but that’s why I went with the 2YR view. Takeaway: We’ve been here before, and not that long ago.

Next, I wanted to see what was on the minds of, let’s call them, avoidants. People looking to leave the U.S. entirely, or people preparing for the literal end times.

Big spikes matching political events; smaller movements due to economic stressors.

Finally, I looked at how people were taking care of themselves in a stressful environment.

Searches for budget-friendly self-care and psychological support are increasing.

Whether you’re sizing up awareness between brands or trying to understand how people are responding to a new law, a cultural moment, or a viral video, Google Trends is a simple and powerful way to tap into real intent. 

And my hope is that as Gen AI tools evolve, they’ll build with that same spirit of openness. Because insight doesn’t just come from the answers. Sometimes, the most valuable signal is in the question itself.

Daily Rip Live Recap: Drama at the Fed, Jensen Huang Stops by Beijing, and Meta’s Back in Court

Watch us every weekday, M-Th at 9 AM ET on YouTube, X, and in the Stocktwits app.

Every weekday, Shay Boloor and I run down the biggest market news and events LIVE on Stocktwits’ morning show, The Daily Rip Live. Here’s what we recently covered:

  • 2:15 | Netflix reported earnings before a three-day weekend, which was odd. After the show aired, they came out with strong financials, so all is well with them, for now! $NFLX ( ▲ 0.43% )  

  • 4:15 | Real Househusbands of DC update! Trump's new nickname for Fed Chair Jerome Powell — “Too Slow” — makes Jay seem way cooler than he is. On Thursday, the European Central Bank (ECB) initiated another rate cut. This spurred the White House to continue to lament Powell’s lack of movement. Watch this space into next week — something tells me this story is FAR from over.

  • 8:05 | Is the semiconductor sell-off overblown? We talk about Taiwan Semiconductor, AMD, ASML, and more. We also discuss news that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made a surprise trip to Beijing to try to smooth things over with trading partners in the East. They lost $250B in market cap this week due to restricted trade policies that limit their abilty to sell chips to China. $TSM ( ▲ 0.56% )  $AMD ( ▲ 2.3% )  $ASML ( ▲ 0.34% )  $NVDA ( ▲ 4.3% )  

  • 18:00 | Eli Lilly and Company's oral weight loss drug triumphs! Results from a 40-week trial show 8% body weight loss on average, plus no liver issues — something Pfizer had to reveal about its own trials just a few days prior. The stock jumped on the news. Shay mentions that Viking Therapeutics, Inc. is working on a similar solution. $LLY ( ▲ 2.89% )  $PFE ( ▲ 0.62% )  $VKTX ( ▼ 2.61% )  

  • 23:30 | Mark Zuckerberg is battling it out in court with FTC drama of his own. We discussed what we're learning from the big trial, and why Zuck says there is too much competition from TikTok and YouTube to justify a break-off of Instagram and WhatsApp. $META ( ▲ 2.65% )  $GOOG ( ▲ 1.47% )  

  • 32:15 | Finally, Stocktwits community GOAT Dojidad pops in to teach us how to do technical analysis. As a fundamentals investor, this was new terrain, and he made it super easy to understand. We also talk about classic rock — we both love Bob Seger! 🖤

Hear Shay and me yap about the markets every weekday at 9 a.m. ET on X (@stocktwits), YouTube, LinkedIn, or in your Stocktwits app. Follow me there — I’m @stocktwitsKP!

Now Here’s a Chart

Earnings season is upon us! I’ll be listening to as many of the calls as I can to hear how businesses are thinking about volatility and offering guidance (or not) given that things are so in flux.

Reading List

🎧 Now playing: “Coming Back” - James Blake featuring SZA — I love a good synthetic harp moment!

Tuesday Thursday Saturday is written by Katie Perry, owner of Ursa Major Media, which provides fractional marketing services and strategy in software, tech, consumer products, professional services, and other industries. She is also the co-host of Stocktwits’ Daily Rip Live show.

Disclaimer: The contents here reflect recaps and summaries of pre-reported or published data, news, and trends. I have cited sources and context for the information provided to the best of my ability. The purpose of the newsletter is to inform and educate on larger trends shaping business and culture — this is NOT investment advice. As an investor, you should always do your own research before making any decisions about your money or your portfolio.