Stellar performance

In the never-ending pursuit of above-average portfolio returns, I've heard of a lot of truly "out there" gimmicks. But the one I read about in Barron's this morning (sorry I can't find a link to it) takes the cake.

Henry Weingarten has been a mathematician and financial analyst for more than two decades. But he prefers to call himself a financial astrologer. As head of private money manager The Astrologers Fund Inc. Weingarten combines fundamental and technical analysis with astrology to predict stock performance.

I know it sounds hokey, but a perusal of his website reveals he's been dead-on in his predictions — although there's curiously no mention of his misses.

Weingarten is in the news right now because he reckons the total solar eclipse coming on March 29 does not bode well for the markets. On that same day, Pluto will be in stationary retrograde at the galactic centre of the cosmos — the same position Saturn was in before the market crashed in 1929.

It all adds up, Weingarten says, to him predicting with more than 90% certainty that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is set for a tumble, and will sit below 10,000 by June. Considering the DJIA is well above 11,000 now, that's a pretty steep drop. If Weingarten is correct and U.S. stocks are set to shed 10% of their value, you know what I think, don't you?

Sounds like a buying opportunity. :)

If only those B-class Berkshire Hathaway shares I've been lusting after could take a similar spill, I'd be one happy camper.