Fengshui and the markets

Time to rearrange the furniture and burn some incense in the northwest corner of your office. Feng shui is the latest rage in market forecasting.

HONG KONG — About 170 investors with a net worth of at least $1 million each crowded into a ballroom at the Four Seasons Hotel to hear Alion Yeo’s views on the markets for the coming year. The audience, clients of European bank ABN AMRO Private Banking, peppered him with questions.

“The incoming U.S. president and [Treasury] secretary were both born in the Year of the Ox,” said one client. “Is that a problem?”

Mr. Yeo’s answer: Yes. The pair of oxen in charge of the U.S. economy could be an accident waiting to happen. Hold out until after January 2010 before investing in the U.S., he advised.

And here we just thought they were donkeys! I cannot wait to hear someone bust out with this argument on the Senate floor as a key reason why Obama’s plan won’t work.

Not surprisingly, in the current economic climate, most of the forecasts are for doom, gloom and haterade. Despite that, though, one of the feng shui analysts hazarded some recommendations in the “fire” and “wood” sectors - that is, electronics, energy and agriculture - recommendations that sound remarkably similar to those of your garden-variety, non-mystical, soulless analyst.


For those inclined to call BS, there is, of course, the “where did the quants get you, anyway?” argument:

At Bank of China International, energy-sector analyst Lawrence Lau doubles as the bank’s in-house feng shui master. In a recent note to clients, he wrote: “While some may think that ancient superstition has little to offer in terms of investment advice, I challenge readers to ask themselves: ‘Have all your Black-Scholes, rocket science quantitative black-box models and fundamental analysis done much better over the past year?’”

Hmm. Is there a black swan in the Chinese zodiac?