Man, I gotta tell you, this whole thing started because I was bored stiff and broke to boot. It wasn’t about being smart; it was about proving a point, mostly to myself, that sometimes logic is overrated. I mean, my five-year tech startup just imploded—not dramatically, just slowly asphyxiated. I watched years of savings evaporate following all the ‘smart money’ rules. By June 2017, I was sitting on a pile of liquidated assets and feeling pretty useless.
I was doomscrolling some financial blogs when I saw an article mocking those career horoscopes. Specifically, the Virgo one for July 2017. Something just snapped. I thought, what if I actually used it? What if I treated it like a serious investment thesis and tracked the results? That’s where this ridiculous project kicked off.
Locating and Decrypting the July 2017 Prediction
The first thing I did was hunted down that exact forecast. Turns out, finding archived daily horoscopes is easier than finding a decent plumber. I finally nailed down the specific text from a popular astrology site. The career outlook for July 2017 for Virgos was pure, glorious, vague garbage. It said something like:
- “A financial shift is incoming, centered around communication and domestic expansion.”
- “Trust your instincts regarding established, foundational systems, avoiding flashy new markets.”
- “The planets favor long-term contracts signed during the second week.”
I took that nonsense and forced it into an investment strategy. “Communication and domestic expansion?” I immediately interpreted that as established telecom companies and maybe some housing ETFs. “Avoiding flashy new markets?” Good, that meant no crypto junk or hot penny stocks. I wasn’t allowed to use any of my actual financial analysis skills. I had to let the cosmic energy guide me.
The Execution: Throwing Money at the Stars
I set aside a specific, thankfully small, chunk of change—money I was willing to lose just for the sake of the experiment. I opened a completely separate brokerage account, nicknamed it ‘The Zodiac Fund,’ and started logging every action.
First move (July 5th): Based on the “established, foundational systems” bit, I plowed 40% of the fund into a giant, boring utility company. Like, electricity and water. Stuff that’s not going anywhere. This was my ‘safe’ bet dictated by Jupiter’s supposed alignment.
Second move (July 11th): This was the “long-term contracts signed during the second week” window. This was tough. What’s a contract? I decided it meant companies heavily reliant on corporate or government contracts. I dumped 30% into a defense contractor—solid, dependable, and always signing deals. I logged it all down, noting the exact minute I placed the order, just in case planetary transit mattered.
Third move (July 19th): The “communication and domestic expansion” part still bugged me. I couldn’t ignore it. So, I chucked the remaining 30% into a big-box retail chain that was expanding rapidly across the country. My thinking? They facilitate communication (advertising) and domestic expansion (more stores). It was a stretch, I know, but the stars demanded it.
Tracking the Financial Outlook: Six Months of Cosmic Chaos
I tracked this portfolio religiously for six solid months. Every Monday, I opened the spreadsheet and compared its performance against the S&P 500, which was my control group—the money I should have invested normally. I didn’t touch the positions, even when my gut screamed sell.
The first month was a total disaster. The utility company stock was flat. The defense contractor was down 7% immediately, thanks to some political turbulence. The big-box retail company surprised everyone by announcing terrible seasonal sales and it tanked 15%. By August, I was staring at a 9% overall loss.
Then, things got weird. September hit. The defense contractor started climbing slowly, recouping its losses. The real shocker was the utility stock. It hadn’t moved for weeks, but suddenly, due to some regulatory decision, it jumped 18% in three days. I pulled up the horoscope archive and reread the section, trying to find the justification for this randomness. There wasn’t one, obviously.
Did I Make Money? Reviewing the Damage
So, here’s the cold, hard truth: I actually walked away with a slight profit. After six months of ignoring common sense and trusting nebulous planetary energy, the Zodiac Fund finished up 3.4%.
But here’s the kicker, the part that proves the whole thing was garbage: during that exact six-month window, the S&P 500 gained nearly 11%. My disciplined, rigidly tracked, astrologically guided portfolio underperformed the basic market average by a factor of three. It made money, but only because the general market was heating up and took my boring utility stock along for the ride. The retail stock stayed in the red the whole time, acting as a constant drain.
What did I learn from this ridiculous stunt? Not to trust astrology for finance, obviously. But more importantly, it taught me the value of mechanical tracking. By forcing myself to document every silly choice and stick to the plan (no matter how insane), I actually became a much better observer of my real investments later on. It showed me that following any strict, documented process, even a nonsensical one, can be better than just panicking and reacting constantly. So, the stars didn’t make me rich, but they accidentally drilled some crucial discipline into my skull. That, you can’t put a price on.
