Insidious: Out of the Further earned about ₱51.7 million on its opening day in the Philippines, according to figures released by its distributor, making it the biggest opening day for a horror movie in the country. For the entertainment industry, this may simply reflect the strength of an established franchise and effective marketing.
For followers of socionomics, however, the timing raises another question: could the country’s growing appetite for darker entertainment be one more expression of rising negative social mood?
When mood changes before events
Socionomics, associated with market analyst Robert Prechter, challenges the conventional idea that events primarily determine how society feels.
We normally assume that weak economic conditions make people pessimistic, political conflict makes them angry and war makes investors fearful. Socionomics argues that collective mood can also move first, with changes in markets, politics, consumer behavior and culture appearing afterward.
This idea was discussed by Inquirer columnist Henry Ong in March 2026 in his article, “Why the stock market may fall further.”
“Financial markets rarely announce turning points when they occur,” Ong wrote. “Investors usually recognize them only in hindsight, after prices have already moved and explanations begin to appear obvious.”
Ong argued that markets cannot be understood through earnings forecasts and economic projections alone because investor behavior is also influenced by collective confidence.
“When social mood is optimistic, uncertainty is discounted and risks appear manageable,” he wrote. “When sentiment weakens, however, even stable conditions begin to look fragile.”
The Philippine experience over the past year provides an interesting setting in which to test that idea.
Why start with stocks?
There is a reason socionomics pays considerable attention to financial markets. Stocks are unusually sensitive to changes in expectations.
A factory takes years to build, while a company can take months to change its investment plans. Governments move slowly, and employment decisions require time.
A stock, however, can be sold in seconds.
If millions of investors collectively become slightly more cautious about the future, financial markets provide one of the quickest places where that shift can appear.
During positive social mood, investors generally tolerate uncertainty more easily. They take more risk, valuation multiples expand and speculative assets become more attractive. Investors become comfortable paying today for profits that may not arrive for many years.
Negative mood produces the opposite response. Risk premiums rise, investors demand greater compensation for uncertainty and weak companies find it harder to attract capital. Narratives that investors previously accepted with little resistance suddenly receive much greater scrutiny.
In valuation terms, social mood can influence the price of risk.
This makes the Philippine market particularly interesting. The issue is not simply whether stocks have become cheap. It is whether investors have become structurally less willing to pay for optimism.
The market may have warned first
Ong had already raised the possibility of deteriorating social mood in June 2025, when the Philippine Stock Exchange Index was trading near 6,300.
Drawing from Prechter’s socionomic theory and Elliott Wave analysis, he suggested that the market might be undergoing Wave C of a larger correction. Within Elliott Wave theory, Wave C is commonly associated with the stage when optimism fades and investors begin questioning whether a recovery will arrive anytime soon.
The PSEi subsequently weakened, broke below the psychologically important 6,000 level and reached the 5,600 region late in 2025 before recovering.
Ong noted in March 2026 that the rebound initially appeared to suggest that the correction had run its course. Yet continued geopolitical conflict and renewed domestic political tension made that conclusion less certain.
“Markets do not weaken simply because war begins,” Ong wrote. “Rather, both tend to reflect the same decline in social mood.”
Whether one accepts that interpretation or not, the important point is that the market’s deterioration came before some of the more visible signs of pessimism that later emerged elsewhere.
Then came consumer confidence
One of the clearest signs is consumer sentiment.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ Consumer Expectations Survey showed that the current-quarter confidence index plunged to -42.0 in the second quarter of 2026 from -15.8 in the first quarter. It was the weakest reading since the pandemic era.
The deterioration was broad. Consumers became substantially more pessimistic about the country’s economic condition, their family finances and household income. They also expected higher inflation and unemployment, while concerns about the Middle East conflict, rising fuel and food prices, corruption and insufficient government measures weighed on sentiment.
Whether this is called social mood, economic pessimism or simply weak expectations, the direction is difficult to ignore.
A conventional economist could easily explain the decline through inflation fears, household finances, employment uncertainty and geopolitical risk. Those explanations may all be correct.
This is precisely why one indicator is never enough. More independent indicators are beginning to point in the same direction.
Politics provides another clue
Political dissatisfaction has also become more visible.
The alliance between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte has fractured, while Duterte’s impeachment trial has added another layer of confrontation to an already polarized political environment. Corruption has also become a central political issue.
There are obvious fundamental explanations for this political tension. Socionomics asks investors to consider another possibility.
Perhaps political conflict does not merely create pessimism. Perhaps a population that has already become more pessimistic also becomes more receptive to conflict.
During positive social mood, societies tend to tolerate institutions, leaders and differences more easily. Compromise becomes more acceptable because people generally believe that tomorrow will be better than today.
During negative periods, the same population can behave differently. People become more critical, opponents appear more threatening, institutional trust weakens and voters become more willing to search for people to blame.
The population has not suddenly changed. Its tolerance for uncertainty and dissatisfaction may simply have changed.
Distrust can become another sociometer
This is why declining trust matters from a socionomic perspective.
When confidence is strong, people are generally more willing to believe that governments, businesses and institutions can solve problems. When mood deteriorates, those same institutions become easier targets for suspicion.
This tendency can eventually have economic consequences.
Political pressure for intervention may increase. Regulation can become more aggressive. Populist proposals become easier to sell, while wealthy individuals, large corporations and established institutions face greater public scrutiny.
The connection between social mood and markets therefore goes beyond psychology. Mood can eventually influence policies that affect corporate profitability and valuation.
Conflict is not confined to domestic politics
The deterioration in mood also coincides with a more hostile global environment.
Ong pointed in March to escalating conflict in the Middle East as one reason to question whether the earlier market correction had truly ended. The BSP’s latest consumer survey also showed that Filipinos were worried about the impact of the conflict on fuel and food prices.
Traditional analysis would say war increases uncertainty and therefore causes fear.
Socionomics turns the question around. It asks whether increasing hostility among nations and increasing risk aversion among investors can sometimes emerge from a broader deterioration in collective mood.
It is one of the theory’s more controversial propositions, but it illustrates the distinction between socionomics and conventional economic analysis.
Then came the horror record
This broader backdrop makes the record performance of Insidious: Out of the Further more interesting.
Socionomic research has long examined whether entertainment preferences change alongside collective mood. The general idea is that optimistic environments may favor cultural themes built around aspiration, confidence and glamour, while pessimistic periods can make fear, dystopia, violence and darker narratives more appealing.
There are obvious limitations to that argument.
Insidious belongs to an established franchise that has generated more than $740 million globally, according to Sony Pictures. A successful opening can therefore be explained by brand recognition, marketing and audience loyalty rather than any shift in collective psychology.
This is why the ₱51.7-million opening should never be treated as a market signal by itself, but what makes it interesting is the timing.
The country has produced its biggest horror opening at a point when consumer confidence has fallen sharply, political confrontation has intensified and the stock market has struggled to sustain optimism.
One observation could easily be coincidence. Several moving in the same emotional direction deserve closer attention.
Risk appetite may be the most important signal
For investors, the practical consequence of negative social mood may not necessarily be a collapse in corporate earnings.
It may simply be a higher required return.
When investors are optimistic, they accept uncertainty and pay more for future growth. A company with a convincing story can command a high P/E ratio even if much of its expected earnings lies years ahead.
When mood deteriorates, those same investors demand a larger margin of safety. They prefer dividends, cash flow and stronger balance sheets. Highly leveraged companies receive bigger discounts, while speculative growth narratives lose some of their appeal.
A stock that once traded comfortably at 15 times earnings might eventually trade at 10 times earnings even if profits remain relatively stable.
What changed was the price investors were willing to pay for uncertainty.
This may help explain why Philippine stocks can remain inexpensive even when historical valuation measures already suggest that they are cheap.
Markets do not bottom simply because valuations are low.
As Ong observed in March, markets “rarely bottom on price alone but when pessimism reaches exhaustion.”
Look for confirmation, not prediction
None of these indicators proves that the Philippines is locked in a negative social mood cycle.
The weak stock market may reflect interest rates and foreign flows. Poor consumer confidence may reflect inflation and employment concerns. Political conflict may result from specific rivalries, while the success of a horror movie may simply mean Filipinos enjoy the franchise.
Socionomics becomes useful only when it is treated as a hypothesis rather than an explanation that automatically fits everything.
If negative social mood is genuinely strengthening, more signs should emerge. Risk appetite should remain weak, political discourse should stay confrontational, households should become more defensive and investors should continue demanding lower prices before accepting uncertainty.
The reverse would matter just as much.
A sustained stock market recovery, improving consumer confidence, easing political hostility and renewed willingness to take risk would suggest that the mood cycle is beginning to turn.
This shows why the horror record is better regarded as confirmation than prediction.
The Philippine stock market may have been one of the first places where deteriorating confidence became visible. Consumer sentiment and political behavior are now providing additional evidence that pessimism has spread beyond trading screens.
The biggest horror opening in Philippine history adds one more unusual piece to that picture. It does not tell investors where the PSEi will trade next month.
But if stocks, consumers, politics and popular culture increasingly begin telling the same emotional story, investors may want to pay attention.
Philippine stocks may already look cheap, but valuation alone does not signal the end of a bear cycle. A more durable recovery may require something harder to measure: the return of optimism itself.
