Reading the Signs: On Inferential Semiotics and Market Imagination

The paper concerns a historical shift in the semiotic interpretation of financial data and how this shaped the imagination of the market. The investigation centres on the emergence of two systems of financial foresight, technical and fundamental analysis. It is demonstrated how both systems were synthesised around the codification of certain pieces of data as semiotic windows to the future which the experienced analyst could interpret but also gainfully narrate to others. This semiotic capacity to read and retell financial signs was an important feature in the construction of financial analysts’ professional reputability, and potential to convince through their predictions. The piece concludes with an outline of how the genealogy’s results can also inform recent scholarship on the formation of economic future expectations, the constitution of market ontologies, and the structure and power of financial analysts’ form of expertise.