Money Matters Now

There is a new kid on the block. And promises to be a blockbuster. Or so they want you to believe. The people behind the kid, that is. Should we call them “parents”? Well, while some of them sound more like shills, I think the word “parents” has definitely a nicer touch to it in our politically correct world. I will stick to this name then.

The kid is called “remote viewing” and he thinks he is as good at trading the stock market or any market, for that matter, as anybody or anything else so far. Pretty cocky, if you ask me. Perhaps even a bit obnoxious.

But let’s look at what the kid has to offer in this area to see if he is a real deal or yet another impostor or manipulator. The latter would not be the first such a case in the history of stock markets. Or financial markets, in general. Every decade has its stock wizzards who sooner or later turn out to be as good as the next guy. In other words, in the long run you are better off to stick to your own advice. And it’s the long run that really matters in stock trading.

The ideas of remote viewing were first seriously and on a large scale investigated by a special spy unit created by the US government during the Cold War. The rumor has it that the Soviets had a similar thing going. The unit existed for a decade or so and was eventually dismantled because its results had not been particularly impressive. Certainly not good enough to justify further expenses, even though those expenses came from the taxpayers money. If you take into account that taxpayers money continues to be spent on things indistinguishable from worthless, it’s probably safe to say that the unit’s work was also indistinguishable from failure. Sure, some results were better than others, but overall it was not really worth it considering the quality of the work the unit had produced. Yes, the keyword here is quality.

Why would then the kid be any better? Is there any justifiable reason to expect him to beat the market with his crystal ball considering that this ball has been found rather hazy by the people who evaluated the said remote viewing unit? I believe the opposite is likely to hold true. That is, the kid may do even worse than the spooks.

I am not trying to say that the remote viewing is completely worthless. That would be a large overstatement. But its results are not equally good in all areas of its potential application. It has been found to be of some use in archeology and it has been of some, rather limited, value in locating the strategically important military installations during the Cold War, but such applications involved real tangible objects already in existence. And that’s not the same as remote viewing the closing price of Dow Jones Industrial Average on the last day of the third quarter of 2008. These are completely different objects.

On the one hand, we have things that already exist sometimes for hundreds if not thousands of years and that are absolutely physical in nature. On the other, we are dealing with an abstract thing whose value has yet to be set at some point in future. I somewhat doubt one can accomplish much with remote viewing in the latter field considering its rather limited success in the former.

But I am willing to give these people a chance. So listen “parents”: if your kid is really so good, how about showing us all his results. Verified in an independent manner, that is. So far I have yet to see those and until I see them, I believe that my darts can do as good a job as your wizzkid is rumored to be doing. Plus, throwing darts at stock charts is much more fun than focusing on some nebulous number on the last day of the third quarter of 2008. Or something…

By: Waldemar Puszkarz

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