They Aren’t Called “Fortune Tellers” For Nothing

The FITS girls call it kismet, our founding editor calls it synchronicity (like the Police song?) … I call it serendipity.

Whatever you call it, it’s pretty cool the way Sic’s new “Pic’s Worth” feature has coincided with some other big news.

Seriously, it’s like it was cosmically aligned.

Some psychic probably foresaw it in her Magic 8-ball … you know, right before she foresaw the fate of GM and right after she predicted tomorrow’s Dow Jones index.

Not that we have enough faith in fate to trust our vastly-diminished stock portfolios to the whims of a psychic.

We’re pretty prudent (not to mention skeptical), and besides – what would Chuck think?

Interestingly enough, though, some of America’s top financiers have chucked their fuzzy financial accoutrement in favor of a different sort of indicator.

Out are charts, graphs, indices, prospectuses, and Wall Street Journal subscriptions. In is Rita, the sidewalk psychic (oh, and aren’t they all named Rita?)

The New York Times has published a feature about the newest financial trend – one that began furtively among frustrated brokers, lost its stigma when entire firms booked psychics for office parties, and has now spread outside of Manhattan to the lower echelons of finance (that whole “trickle-down effect” is real, people).

From The New York Times:

On a good day last summer, Thomas Taccetta, a stock trader, might have checked his financial charts before plotting the day’s investments. Today he is likely to check in with his psychic as well. “I’ll play the broadest index, the S.&P. 500,” Mr. Taccetta said, “and if she tells me she is getting a negative view, I will sell.”

Psychics say their business is robust, as do astrologers and people who channel spirits, read palms and otherwise predict the future (albeit not the winning lottery numbers). Their clients, who include a growing number of men, are often professional advice-givers themselves, in fields like real estate and investments, and they typically hand over anywhere from $75 to $1,000 an hour for this form of insight.

Mr. Taccetta, the stock trader featured in the article, explains the trend as a response to the never-can-tell nature of the current economy.

“When conditions are this volatile,” he says, “consulting a psychic can be as good a strategy as any.”

You know? We just can’t argue with his reasoning. The economy, already by definition unpredictable, has rejected even the most tried-and-true patterns.

Just last week, for example, as businesses announced third-quarter bloodlettings … err, earnings, one company stood out from among the universally dismal reports.

PetSmart rolled out recession-defying profits, growth, and positive projections.

PetSmart, by the way, is a pet accessory store … which is to say, certainly not the type of business anyone would expect to pull any kind of profit during a veritable economic depression – and make no mistake, people have started using the “D” word.

In an economic environment that yields to nothing but a pet store, all bets are off, people.

No balance sheet or market report could have predicted that beneath the decay of huge multinational conglomerates, doggie treats would emerge as the wise investment.

Indeed, a sage strategy requires a sage strategist – or a sage for a strategist.

The fact that psychics as Wall Street prognosticators have become a story at all underscores the point.

Psychics, like pet suppliers, are the last business segment you’d expect to boom during a recession – unless, of course, your name is Rita.

Or maybe Cleo.

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