Moneyspider in the News

Star fad takes the Pisces

The Sun

BRITISH consumers are being targeted by American finance firms to invest cash based on their star signs.

The latest US craze for financial stargazing is getting a foothold in the UK, warns investment funds analyst Moneyspider.com.

Already hugely popular in the US, where many similar fads originate, financial astrology uses planetary movements to predict the performance of currencies, stock markets, property prices and other financial asset classes. Around 1,500 websites are targeting potential UK investors with spam e-mail inviting them to invest because " it is written in the star."

Bill Ross managing director of Moneyspider.com said: ''There are now specialists fund managers incorporating planetary movements within their standard calculations. This is, quite frankly, dangerous for investors.

"It is one thing to have a bit of fun, but would anyone in their right minds seriously want to invest their hard-earned cash on the basis of the relative positions of celestial bodies?

"Who is the sensible investor going to believe? A responsible research service which constantly monitors all 2,000 or so funds available to UK investors, utilising a unique computer system which compares fund performance over one, three and five years or a man in a pointy hat rambling on about when Mercury is rising in Gemini or whatever."

A recent study by The British Association for the Advancement of Science asked a professional investor, a financial astrologer and a five-year-old child to invest a fictional £5,000 on the FTSE100.

The investor chose shares on the basis of his experience, the astrologer based her decisions on the "birthdate" of companies and child chose her shares randomly.

The child lost the least amount of money and the financial astrologer made the largest losses.