Microsoft Share Price and Google Employment Interest

What's the link? When I search for MSFT in the correlation tool I receive:

# 0.8571msftr
# 0.8282qqqq
# 0.8167quote msft
# 0.7909proquin
# 0.7706wmt
# 0.7612sbux
# 0.7525slb
# 0.7345fas 109
# 0.7340thestreet
# 0.7334glw

I would have guessed an inverse correlation...

Wouldn't you expect to see an inverse correlation if, and this is a big if, there is causation like that you speak of? The graph above looks like a positive correlation, which disproves your thesis either way. You just can’t make this stuff up, indeed.

Cool chart, but I am willing to bet this is a classic case where both data series are correlated to a third data series that is the real causation (like when people find falsely interesting correlations between two data series merely bc both are increasing in time). In this case, I bet MSFT is correlated to GOOG, and GOOG's price being up is what causes people to interview. Although this would suggest, when all tech stocks are up and people want to interview with for high quality / hot tech jobs, they're looking to work for GOOG not MSFT, in which case the correlation actually demonstrates something interesting if not what you might initially predict..

@srw

I got the same result as you.

But read the top of Paul's chart:
"User uploaded activity for MSFT".

This does not sound like a search to search correlation