Can The Moon Really Boost Your Investment Return?
A couple of resonably influential studies have been done regarding the popular notion that the movement of the moon affects the way stock market investment strategies are formulated. A few years ago, the Harvard Business Review attracted some attention by noting that the results of both of these studies suggested that during the seven days before a new moon and the seven days after a new moon, average stock market returns are higher than at other times, all over the world. Though it might sound quite crazy however, some perfectly sensible-seeming fund managers and investors set some store by it. The biological research into the issue revealed that the levels of serotonin, in the human body rise and fall as the moon moves (lower when the moon is new, higher when it is full) and that our mood – and hence attitude towards the market – changes as they do so. Studies like this also tend to overlook the nasty matter of transaction fees and index fund management fees, both of which will cut back on any returns you might make, given that lunar trading clearly means frequent trading.