Jittery Investors Seek Direction From Feng Shui Gurus

In Asia, when a feng shui master talks, people listen
By Ambreen Ali,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 9, 2009 3:07 AM CST
Jittery Investors Seek Direction From Feng Shui Gurus
More investors are turning to feng shui masters for financial advice as Hong Kong's market plummets in the world recession.   (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Hong Kong investors are invoking feng shui—the ancient Chinese art associated in the Western mind with interior decorating—to guide their depleted portfolios, the Wall Street Journal reports. Two inauspicious lunar eclipses have already predicted a grim year, and masters are warning investors to beware of the land of President Obama and his treasury secretary—both ominously born in the Year of the Ox—until 2010.

Such guidance is widely embraced in Asia's money hub, where a "feng shui index" was recently relaunched to aid market predictions. One guru said this Chinese New Year has been his busiest in 25 years. "People see professional bankers making very stupid mistakes. I think that explains why so many people are going in different directions," said a behavioral finance professor.
(More Hong Kong stories.)

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