"Correlation is not causation" is a dictum well worth bearing in mind when it comes to finance: just because two variables appear to be linked it does not mean that one causes the other.
There is a correlation between Bangladeshi butter production and US stockmarket returns, but it would be unwise to base your assessment of the latter on the former. An amusing new spurious correlation is between the price of bitcoin and Mexican Hass avocados, as John Authers notes on Bloomberg.
They have nothing to do with each other beyond "superficial price action". In fact, they are heading in different directions. The avocado market is coalescing around the Hass variety; cryptocurrencies are splitting into "ever-proliferating" new coin types.
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Anthony Hilton, Evening Standard
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