Wall Street analysts are showing they’re Taylor Swift superfans too by riffing on her songs in their usually wonky research notes
On Thursday, a BTIG research note arrived in inboxes with the title “Now We Got Bad Blood.” The day before, David Kostin, of Goldman Sachs, headlined “All you had to do was stay”.
For the uninitiated, the titles are plays on Taylor Swift songs. And they’re not the only such credentials on Wall Street: The singer’s chart-topping megawatt appeal is turning a lot of sellers into “Swifties” superfans.
“Wall Street has been in dire straits for so long, it’s refreshing,” said eToro’s Callie Cox, who considers herself a Swiftie. The American investment analyst has tickets to see Swift in concert in Madrid next year.
Swift’s reign at the top of pop culture has been one of the biggest stories of this year, not just in the music world. His record-breaking cross-country Eras tour was credited with boosting the U.S. economy this year. His songs – new and old – have millions of streams; a film based on his tour crossed $200 million at the worldwide box office; and her mere presence at a football game featuring her alleged boyfriend Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs boosted NFL ratings and sales of his jersey.
Steve Sosnick was out to dinner with five friends this week and Swift’s name came up more than once. “One guy made fun of her, and the two who had brought their daughters to see her shot him,” said the chief strategist at Interactive Brokers. “It’s an economic force – just ask Jay Powell – and a true phenomenon. I wonder if this is what Beatlemania was like.
For Swift, 2023 was a defining year. Bloomberg Economics estimates that the megastar — along with Beyoncé’s tour and the “Barbenheimer” films — may have contributed as much as $8.5 billion to U.S. growth in the third quarter. Discussions of its GDP-boosting abilities even earned a mention in the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s June Beige Book, which says it helped spur growth in the city’s economy. Bloomberg now believes that Swift’s fame propelled her into the ranks of billionaires.
Jefferies’ Thomas Simons issued a note earlier this week following the release of October inflation data, which fell short of expectations. This too could be linked to 12-time Grammy winner, he said. “At the risk of attributing yet another economic data release to Taylor Swift, it is likely that the end of her recent concert tour allows prices to stabilize on a lower trajectory,” Simons wrote.
At StoneX, Vincent Deluard says slowing credit card spending trends and recent negative corporate earnings forecasts “suggest that the usually resilient American consumer is experiencing a post-Swift hangover.” A memo this week from the director of global macro strategy – titled “From Taylor Swift’s Hangover to QE 2026: A Macro Roadmap” – was accompanied by lyrics from two of her lesser-known songs, “Dress” and “Death By a Thousand Cuts.” .”
It’s not typical for analysts and strategists to try to come up with catchy titles for their research papers, Sosnick says. But excess exists. If “analysts are invoking his name and his words to make their articles stand out from the deluge of daily reports, then that’s a bit lame,” he said.
