By the week ending 21st April 2019, the searches related to books on investment had attained a popularity score of about 40. This year, by the week ending 19th April, the phrase investment book had attained the peak popularity of 100, representing a growth of 150%.

Through the past year, the popularity score for the phrase kept fluctuating but a steady spike began emerging during the first week of March this year. During the week ending March 8th, the score was 37 and later dropped to 26 before rising again to 40 during the week ending March 22.

A week later, the popularity increased significantly by about 57% to 63. In the second week of April, the queries grew to 71 before attaining the peak popularity of 100 in the week ending April 19th, a growth of 40%. 

Before the March steady growth in the queries, the highest peak popularity was recorded during the second week of December 2019 at 62. Notably, a week later the figure plunged by 43.5% to 35. Another notable high of 2019, was registered during the weeks ending 2nd June and 11th August when the figure stood at 53. During the one year under review, Americans were less interested in the investment book phrase during the week ending 3rd November when the score was 20 on the Google Trends tool.

Google trends platform analyzes the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across various regions and languages. For Google searches, a value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term. A value of 50 means that the term is half as popular. 

Effects of Coronavirus creates room for investments

Notably, the interest in investment books grew at a time the American economy went into a shut down as one of the measures to curb the spread of the Coronavirus. During this period, most stocks had plunged to their all-time historical lows prompting most people to invest and later sell when prices bounce back. The interest can be attributed to the fact that most people wanted to know where to put their money amid an economic meltdown. 

More people might also be interested in books about investment as a means of diversifying their sources of income. Recent studies have shown that most Americans did not know how to invest their money as they were torn between different options from company stocks to mutual funds.

Looking for an investment book might be a way of coming out of financial illiteracy that comes with consequences like lack of understanding for interest rates among others. 

Massachusetts residents show the most interest in books about investment

During the period under review, the state of Massachusetts had the highest volume of people interested in an investment book attaining the peak popularity score of 100. Connecticut and Minnesota attained a popularity score of 84 while New York score stood at 82. The search volume for investment book from residents of New Jersey gave the state a popularity score of 71, to close the top five categories.

North Carolina has also recorded a high volume of interest with a popularity score of 68 closely followed by Illinois at 67, while South Carolina occupies the eighth spot with a popularity score of 66. On the other hand, California and Maryland have the same popularity score at 65.

Notably, states like New York are having a high interest in books about investment considering that it was the first region to be hit by the coronavirus pandemic in the US and the first to go into lockdown. The city of New York is largely considered the financial capital of the world thanks to the many financial institutions with headquarters in the region.

The interest in investment might keep growing as most Americans continue to feel the impact of the pandemic that has crippled the US economy. Most specifically, more people are continuing to file for unemployment and many might want to invest their money to avoid feeling the brunt of the economic uncertainty that comes with such pandemics.