Pop Culture & Analytics - Background: Succession is a hit HBO drama series that follows the dysfunctional Roy family, owners of a global media empire called Waystar Royco. The show revolves around intense family power struggles, backstabbing boardroom politics, and headline-grabbing scandals. Logan Roy, the aging patriarch, constantly keeps his children guessing about who will succeed him. Each episode is filled with dramatic leadership shakeups, market-moving announcements, and viral moments that send the internet and sometimes the stock market into a frenzy. 

Waystar’s data analytics team recently observed a strong correlation between the number of tweets mentioning the company and its daily stock price movements. They were initially excited by the idea that social media buzz might be driving investor interest. But as they dug deeper, they noticed that these spikes in both tweets and stock price tended to follow major announcements, leadership changes, or company scandals. Let’s now apply what we’ve learned about interpreting relationships in data using this scenario.