Trump is 'puppet to planets'

If you think you've got an aptitude for investing, you're probably wrong. Research in the area of behavioral economics suggests experts are no better at predicting stock market outcomes than anyone else. In fact, psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman describes the very idea of being able to foresee market movement as an illusion.

This is not an especially heartening message for those whose jobs depend on stock market performance. How are you supposed to maintain an edge over the competition when your experience and expertise don't seem to matter?

The answer, according to some business leaders, is in the stars.

A part of the toolbox

Christeen Skinner is a London-based financial astrologist whose clients include CEOs, investors and bankers. When I get in touch to arrange an interview, she requests that we speak "after Tuesday's lunar eclipse."

We set up a Skype call for Wednesday. Her week has got off to a busy start. Among the clients she has seen is a South American banker who is "interested in grains" and a northern European client looking for advice on when to buy and sell stocks.

Skinner describes astrology as one of a number of tools to use to make financial decisions and advises clients not to rate it any higher than that. Its particular strength, she says, is in timing.

"A trader can feel when something isn't right ... And then you can say, 'you're absolutely right. There's a full moon, and it's going to align with this and this and this. I suspect it's going to make whatever the move is.'"

Her daily work involves conducting detailed analyses. First thing in the morning and last thing at night, she consults a set of tables known as Raphael's Astronomical Ephemeris. The annual publication, which first appeared in the 19th century, lists the relative positions of celestial bodies. She also uses a software program called Optuma to track stock market performance against planetary movement.

Her corporate clients tend to request discretion. When filling out invoices, she is often asked to describe herself as a consultant rather than an astrologist. "A company is very unlikely to have you on the payroll. They've got shareholders," she says. The people who seek her services tend to be "very high up." 

'Puppet to the planets'

The observation appears to bear out in history, too. "Millionaires don't need astrology. Billionaires do," the banking titan JP Morgan is purported to have said. He was among several powerful individuals known to have consulted an astrologist for guidance. Former US President Ronald Reagan was another.

Skinner herself has no interest in moving from the domain of business to politics. "Can you imagine trying to advise Trump?" she asks, adding that she can identify the dates when his tweets are going to be especially incendiary. "He is a puppet to the planets."

At present, she is observing the patterns associated with the interaction of Neptune and Pluto with the so-called Wheeler weather cycle. She believes her analysis could offer an insight into the current trade dispute between the United States and China.

"What happens every 500 years is that trade moves from east to west," Skinner says. "One becomes more dominant than the other ... this is part of a natural cycle."

She takes a similarly long view in the debate about cryptocurrencies. She points to the end of the 13th century, when the opening of trade routes required the consolidation of currency in place of every town having its own coinage. "Here we are again now. We're at the tipping point … we're moving toward something else."

When I ask her about Brexit, she laughs. "We can be absolutely one thousand percent sure they [the British] are not using an astrologist."

Brexit is 'astrological disaster'

According to Skinner, the dates chosen for Britain's departure from the European Union have been an astrological disaster. The problem apparently has to do with the retrograde movement of Mercury. Skinner says all three dates that have been planned for Brexit: March 29, April 12 and October 31, correspond to a Mercurial pattern that feels like "the postman not quite making the delivery." The likeliest date for Britain to leave the bloc, she believes, is December 2020.

Meanwhile, she says, Germany needs to get with the times, especially in the area of artificial intelligence and digital currencies. She believes the date of the country's reunification [October 3, 1990], its most recent "birth date" in other words, plays a significant role.

"It's a Libra. It's an air sign. You want to think. You want to be creative. You want to be leaders. But there is a little bit about the lazy Libra about this." She predicts next year will be "panicky" for Germany but says that once the country gets into the "fast lane" there'll be no problem.

Keeping track of so many planetary patterns and dates sounds exhausting, so I ask Skinner what she does to unwind. "Jigsaws," she says.

While her work may be dismissed as a pseudoscience, she is among a number of astrologists who appear to have built thriving careers on financial consulting. Behavioral economics would suggest she has as much of a chance of predicting what the stock market will do as the next person does.