Financial astrology was mainstream, not fringe, in nineteenth-century markets.

Evidence

The antecedents of homo speculans responded to the uncertainties of nineteenth-century capitalism by blurring the lines between prediction and divination. To traverse market volatility, the most adventurous speculators turned to the occult, enlisting the services of hypnotists, tarot readers, and, above all, financial astrologers. Their forecasts linked planetary cycles to price cycles and lunar movements to the ebbs and flows of stock values. Occult projections of this kind were not fringe, but mainstream. During the late nineteenth century, eminent stockbrokers such as W. D. Gann, R. N. Elliott, and Charles Dow (of the Dow Jones index) pioneered a practice called “chartist investment analysis,” drawing directly on gnostic and astrological fields to hedge future uncertainties. Reciprocally, astrology made appeals to scientific rationality to lend legitimacy to its own forecasts. Some of the most successful financial astrologers demonstrated a solid grasp of astronomy and its underlying mathematics, thus increasing their appeal in the eyes of financiers. In the aftermath of the Great Depression, US exchange markets saw a renaissance of astrological thinking, with J. P. Morgan himself becoming a devout follower of celebrity astrologer Evangeline Adams. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 201

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s running thread on how homo speculans blurs prediction with divination — the historical antecedent of today’s speculative self-presentation.
• CANDY: Charles Dow of the Dow Jones index as a chartist drawing on astrology is a genuinely surprising, mentionable tidbit.
• SEED: Angle: financial astrology as the original ‘speculative community’ — a case study in how the reader’s homo speculans thesis has a century-old precursor within finance itself.