Make Money with Roubini Sentiment Indicator

I started doing this as a joke and did not expect to find a way to make money with Roubini Sentiment Indicator. Nouriel Roubini, a.k.a Dr. Doom has recently been stating that he is not Dr. Doom but he is Dr. Realist despite the fact that he is on TV mostly when things are going wrong, volatility spiking and stock market going down. You can clearly see this pattern from the graph below.

I gathered the Roubini sentiment index from weekly values provided by Google Trends. A simple correlation analysis shows that Roubini sentiment index has a negative correlation of (0.68) with the market and a positive correlation of 0.82 with the VIX. Some might dismiss the Roubini sentiment indicator because of its high correlation with the VIX, thinking that Roubini’s popularity is caused by the increase in VIX. Before jumping into any conclusions, we need to answer the following question: What is the exact nature of the relationship between VIX and Roubini Sentiment Indicator? If VIX is leading Roubini Sentiment Indicator, then you could rightly claim that Roubini is merely a parasite exploiting the increased fear in the marketplace. If the two indices are coinciding then Roubini is merely expressing what the market is thinking, hence he is truly the Dr. Realist or maybe Dr. Journalist? On the other hand, if Roubini Sentiment Indicator is leading the VIX, then it might be the case that Roubini is spreading the fear like the plague and causing the spikes in VIX and declines in the market. In this case, he is the dreaded Dr. Doom. Take a look at the graph of Roubini Index vs. VIX and see the high correlation yourself. (more)