Five anonymised historical charts were dealt to every player. The Monkey Index returned +0.12% across the same tape.
42 desks completed all five charts.
chart 1
OXY
Occidental Petroleum
+5.29%
82% UP / 18% DOWNcrowd split · 45 calls
82% called itdirectional accuracy
2008-04-02historical decision date
+0.37%Monkey Index contribution
While Wall Street banks were cracking around Bear Stearns that spring, surging crude prices kept oil producers like Occidental Petroleum in high demand as one of the market's last refuges. Buyers stepped straight back in here to ride the final leg of the commodity boom before the wider financial crisis dragged energy down too.
chart 2
KMB
Kimberly-Clark
+3.18%
72% UP / 28% DOWNcrowd split · 43 calls
72% called itdirectional accuracy
2020-06-25historical decision date
-0.03%Monkey Index contribution
Empty supermarket shelves and the great lockdown toilet-paper rush turned the maker of Kleenex and Huggies into one of the safest hides on the market in spring 2020. Even as the wider reopening rally gathered pace in June, buyers kept bidding up the household staples.
chart 3
GIS
General Mills
+0.48%
62% UP / 38% DOWNcrowd split · 42 calls
62% called itdirectional accuracy
2023-04-11historical decision date
-0.02%Monkey Index contribution
Spring 2023 was the peak of the packaged-food inflation trade, when investors crowded into pantry staples like General Mills because shoppers were still absorbing higher cereal and snack prices. This window sat right near the top of that defensive run, and the shares have halved since as supermarket volume finally pushed back.
chart 4
PPG
PPG Industries
-6.58%
26% UP / 74% DOWNcrowd split · 42 calls
74% called itdirectional accuracy
2020-10-21historical decision date
-0.20%Monkey Index contribution
Lockdown home-improvement projects had DIYers buying every tin of paint on the shelf, lifting PPG all through late summer even as its aerospace and factory coatings lagged behind. By late October, pre-election nerves and a fresh autumn wave of virus cases gave the industrial recovery trade reason to take a breather.
chart 5
BMY
Bristol-Myers Squibb
-0.04%
64% UP / 36% DOWNcrowd split · 42 calls
36% called itdirectional accuracy
2009-12-17historical decision date
+0.00%Monkey Index contribution
Big pharma spent late 2009 bracing for a patent cliff, with blockbuster blood-thinner Plavix nearing the end of its exclusivity and Washington debating healthcare reform. Bristol-Myers Squibb had just acquired cancer biotech Medarex and was shedding its Mead Johnson formula business to reinvent itself around oncology, and this autumn climb cooled right at the top.