Yahoo Finance The “big economic issue” Americans aren’t paying attention to
"Greece" is the word when it comes the global markets’ anxieties, but that word – specifically, the economic crisis there – doesn't seem to worry the average American, at least based on their Internet search behavior.
Despite Wednesday's selloff in the S&P 500 (^GSPC) in part due to "Grexit" concerns, the index remains in positive territory for the year. And to be sure, U.S. markets have moved occasionally because of events in Greece. For example, the S&P 500 dropped 1.6% back on February 6 when Greece’s rating was lowered to B- by Standard & Poor’s. On the flipside, when Greece sealed a 4-month extension deal on February 20, the S&P 500 gained 1.0%.
Current talks between Greece and its creditors have yet to end with a resolution. If Greece doesn’t pay back the International Monetary Fund, a default could force the country out of the Eurozone and the economic aftermath could be disastrous and could have an affect on U.S. markets.
Yet the average American has other economic concerns, according to Nick Colas, the chief market strategist at Convergex, a brokerage services provider in New York. Using Google Trends (GOOG) to assess various economic-related searches, Colas found users in the United States searched word “jobs” 10 times more than “Greece”.
“Americans are much more focused on their economic reality,” he said. Colas adds that while Greece is a "big economic issue" at the moment, Americans were far more focused on a celebrity's battle with the world's largest company. "Taylor Swift", in light of the singer's winning battle with Apple (AAPL), was searched three times more than "Greece".
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And it's not just Americans, who are unconcerned about a potential Greek default. Surprisingly, Germans, who are more financially invested in Greece, don't seem to be worried either, based on their search behavior.
“That part did surprise me," Colas said. "We looked at 'Griechenland', which is German for Greece... and found that searches for new cars like Mercedes and Volkswagen, outnumbered the Greek searches by over 50%."
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