Comments on: High-flying financiers subscribe to high-ticket astrologers

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000

I find myself reminded of the returning gag regarding tabloid magazines actually being a reliable source of information to the people in the know.

By: Mordicai

Mordicai — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:02:00 +0000

Yep, that is exactly my first thought– “wait, so you are saying professional gamblers are notoriously superstitious! Shock!”

By: Mordicai

Mordicai — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:02:00 +0000

OH MAN

ME TOO.

By: pedrobergerac

pedrobergerac — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 10:27:00 +0000

Wieder mal vergessen: Das letzte Hemd hat keine Taschen. Die Gewinne der Einen sind die Schulden der Anderen. Wenn die Schuldenblase platzt, was sie bisher immer gemacht hat, hat keiner mehr was.

Solange die Menschen nicht wissen, wie das Geld und die Wurst gemacht werden, können sie ruhiger schlafen.

Würde der Staat, wie es ihm eigentlich zustände, sein Geld selber aus der Luft schöpfen, und dieses ungerechtfertigte Monopol nicht den Privatbanken überlassen, bräuchten wir alle KEINE STEUERN zu bezahlen.

Das Verschweigen dieser Tatsache ist der wirkliche Steuerbetrug. Unser Geldsystem ist darauf ausgerichtet, die Menschen zugunsten der Eliten zu versklaven. Mit dem ESM wurde dieses Versklavungssystem von der BRD auf EU Ebene gehoben.

Der Euro ist das Instrument dazu.

By: adralien

adralien — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 01:49:00 +0000

Yeah, as long as your predictions give returns of 10-20% per year overall you will retain a strong client base who run under the radar and make a reasonable amount of money quietly.

Plus predictions like “dark times for the Fed” don’t really need an astrologer to predict with the debt servicing load and aging boomers set to demolish medicare.

By: wysinwyg

wysinwyg — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 18:05:00 +0000

Dude, the idea of laundering information through fortune tellers of various stripes is brilliant. I guess Julian Assange could have saved himself a lot of trouble by teaming up with Miss Cleo.

By: Lemoutan

Lemoutan — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 11:07:00 +0000

I don’t know that this necessarily is magical thinking. It may simply be a means of making decisions in an overwhelming sea of information. Any method of cutting down the size of the decision space to something that you can actually, comfortably, examine might be used. It’s why HR departments use graphology and other worthless metrics to eliminate candidates from a flood of applicants. They don’t necessarily believe in the nonsense – it’s just a useful way of doing an automatic and no-thought-required algorithmic preselection. Almost anything will do. You’re never going to know you’ve pre-eliminated the ‘ideal’ thing you’ve been seeking and there’ll always be a ‘best’ in the set getting through the filter, so you can simultaneously pretend that you’re applying your best personal judgement in your final selection whilst allowing you to blame the woo if ever anyone demonstrates you could have had even better.

It’s a simple responsibility-eliminating device is all. A deresponsibilinator, if you will.

By: Lemoutan

Lemoutan — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 10:58:00 +0000

But presumably the predictions would have to be reliable to have any value. Consistently wrong or consistently right hardly matters. Wouldn’t this – being rather uncharacteristic of astrological predictions – be easily detectable by any observer as a remarkable anomaly? Although I suppose if you’ve stopped looking at their success rates, because, umm, why bother? It could work once, or maybe unnoticeably infrequently … Hmm. OK. You might be onto something there …

By: Bo Dixen Pedersen

Bo Dixen Pedersen — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 10:23:00 +0000

Magical thinking and the problems thereof is well documented and ignored by all echelons of society.

What I noticed is brokers need that competitive edge – why do thousands then subscribe to THE SAME NEWSLETTER? At least get your own magical fairy if you want that edge.

By: peregrinus

peregrinus — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 09:22:00 +0000

I know ‘successful’ brokers who fervently believe in fortune-tellers, signs, omens and the like. I put this illness down to their inadequate mental capacity for understanding anything going on around them, hence positive outcomes (lots of money) for them simply trips fuses, and negative outcomes (2008+) simply … trips fuses. Similar to sentient beings, their minds quest for understanding – devoid of any productive way to garner that, they default to the sell and hype of fortune telling. Which is what they peddle to their clients anyway. So it’s just a birds of a feather thing.

All this would stop instantly if investors required brokers and traders to share in both profit and loss.

Ultimately, I believe that it isn’t impossible there is some hyper-meta structure governing behaviour – but I do believe that there isn’t a person on the planet who can actually capture that fantastic concept and usefully apply it to predicting the future.

Wonks.

By: Antijoe

Antijoe — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 07:31:00 +0000

Any astrologer worth their salt would laugh at Saturn square Neptune being a prediction of bankruptcy! Bad debts coming home to roost? Yes. Bankruptcy? No.

If you’re going to do it, for Christ’s sake do it properly!

By: atimoshenko

atimoshenko — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 06:19:00 +0000

The algorithms powering a lot of HFT, while having a patina of greater of greater rigour and credibility, often provide no better real-world performance than consulting an astrologer.

The (financial) market is not difficult to beat because it efficiently incorporates all available information, it is difficult to beat because it is random – because it is driven by, and produces, much more noise than signal.

By: Tom Rombouts

Tom Rombouts — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 04:53:00 +0000

I would have never believed this type of thing, but not too long ago I sold a used copy of this book (which claims to predict the price fluctuations of gold based on astrological factors) for over $400 : http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000THEOH4

By: mccrum

mccrum — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 02:27:00 +0000

It doesn’t say how often it comes out. Four times a year makes it $59 per issue. Nice work if you can get it.

By: jhertzli

jhertzli — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 01:59:00 +0000

Maybe her customers are the less successful Wall Street traders.

On the other hand, this does explain why many of them needed bailouts…

By: adralien

adralien — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 01:47:00 +0000

Say you had insider trader information… say you needed to “launder” that information before making a profit from it… covering that information up as “astrology” and selling the information rather than trading directly on it is the perfect crime.

By: Kimmo

Kimmo — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 00:28:00 +0000

If you needed any proof the meritocracy is a mirage…

By: msbpodcast

msbpodcast — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 00:05:00 +0000

Considering the mess Wall Street led us down, it figures that they abandoned reason and went in for augury.

What’s next?

Reading the entrails of sacrificial virgin maidens?

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 23:41:00 +0000

Henry Weingarten has been doing this form of astrology for years now:

http://www.afund.com

There are more too; but I think one’s odds at this would be just as good for the specific financial information one needs by throwing sticks.

However in a generalized broad brushed format this can show trends before they become apparent. Hardly anything to bank directly on though, as easily seen from the BS in that linked article.

By: Jim Saul

Jim Saul — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 23:37:00 +0000

I had a hard time believing that the Nancy Reagan was constantly consulting astrologers, and that Ronald believed that the biblical Armageddon was already being fought.

They weren’t even embarrassed to admit that was how they governed.

Vonnegut had a better grasp of the gibbering insanity of the oligarchs than do all the CNBC chowderheads combined.

By: Jim Saul

Jim Saul — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 23:31:00 +0000

Perhaps that’s what Bohemian Grove is all about.. yearly consultation of the Owl God’s oracles.

All that plutocratic down-low circle-jerking might just be the side show.

By: Jim Saul

Jim Saul — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 23:26:00 +0000

I read that as “farming my anger” and thought that’s a great way to describe the news business.

By: novium

novium — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 22:15:00 +0000

the one I hope for is someone taking note of the flight of birds. Or has a bunch of chickens they spread grain for and watch how they eat it.

By: Artimus Mangilord

Artimus Mangilord — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 22:01:00 +0000

This piece certainly fits well into the popular narrative that traders are ignorant egomaniacs, but I have a hard time believing there are ‘thousands’ of Wall Street traders relying on astrological financial newsletters to make their trades. Even if the two astrologers referenced aren’t inflating their subscriber totals, respectively, why would that mean they’re all professional traders? More likely they are laypeople that manage some or all of their own money. Funny piece, though.

By: winkybb

winkybb — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 21:51:00 +0000

Could just be a way of communicating trading intent to manipulate the market. If enough traders agreed to bet client’s money on common recommendations from an astrologer, it would move the market predictably. Whilst they obviously couldn’t give two shits about their clients’ money, they could then front run with proprietary or even private money to great personal benefit.

But we all trust the markets and the traders, don’t we.

By: Dlo Burns

Dlo Burns — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 21:46:00 +0000

What ever happened to good ol’ voodoo-nomics?

By: angusm

angusm — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 21:39:00 +0000

Only $237/year? There’s a woman with no financial acumen at all. She could soak them for ten times that.

By: Geoduck

Geoduck — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 21:38:00 +0000

What do you want to bet that right now in some Wall Street office a man is consulting sheep entrails.

By: avraamov

avraamov — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 21:37:00 +0000

in fact it’s framing my anger at this unsurprising news very well.

By: avraamov

avraamov — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 21:34:00 +0000

listening to the new GY!BE while reading this. how very apt.