day trader who calls himself “Doctor Racso,” claims to have turned $40,000 into half a million dollars in only ten days through “trading charts” and, he then lost almost all of it on the market. “I made the money because I was a good astrologer, but I lost the money because I was a bad trader,” he said. Thaw used astrology, he tells me, to look for “signals” for whenwould shift. “Only then I decided to gamble because I was so excited,” he says.
Thaw isn’t alone in looking to the cosmos for help trading stocks. Increasingly, astrology, once reserved for the backpages of women’s magazines, has become a tool for beginner traders to make sense of the stock market, giving people the edge they need to be confident when buying and selling.
But while the practice may not be new, it is reaching new audiences. It all began in 2021 during the crypto boom, when the total value of all cryptocurrencies surpassed $3 trillion. Back then, one of the most prominent astrological traders was internet personalityduring the COVID-19 pandemic, Altman says her followers were more than willing to put their spare government stimulus money into day trading — until the stimulus checks stopped.
Through astrology, Gidel says she’s come to think of markets and businesses as individuals. “In my head, they just become another person,” she says. With this in mind, she often compares the chart of a business with one of her clients to give them personalized trading advice. “What I want to see when comparing traders’ charts is how their personal sun and moon relates to that business chart,” she says. “In an ideal world, I want to see both connected to each other’s chart in some meaningful way.
The CFA Institute, a global not-for-profit organization that provides finance education for investment professionals, says risky investments and short-term trading are often. As people claim they’ve “figured out” the market, we’re reminded of how easy it is to fall into the idea of get-rich-quick schemes. Even Thaw, who once was considered a financial success story, says he doesn’t believe astrology should be used to make money. Instead, he says, “it’s a tool for healing.