What is a Trend?

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The other day I was in a lecture about trends. The presenter was talking about what he does in his company, identifying trends and his theories, I came to realized that I didn’t have a concrete definition of a trend. So, turned to Google to find out and got to a point that all the definitions that I got didn’t satisfy me. Also the word “trend” depends on the context, since we can have fashion trends, market trends, financial trends, etc., so a definition that applies to various contexts should be “the best”.

But then again, what is a trend? Well I found a definition I like: “A pattern that is evident from past events”[1]. The reason of my liking lies on the word pattern. For a trend to exist a pattern is needed, even if it evident or not. However identifying a “early” trend is basically identifying the pattern developing and that is where the first mover advantage can occur.

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[1] http://ag.arizona.edu/futures/home/glossary.html, Glossary – Definitions of Selected Futures Terms, University of Arizona