Trying to keep track of the railway boss, by Martin Waller

“Did you know that on days on which there is a full moon, the FTSE100 index rises disproportionately? It does, claims this year’s UK Stock Market Almanac from Harriman House. And strong market turning points can coincide with lunar eclipses, the next one of which is due on February 21, it seems. I take to task the analyst Stephen Eckett for reliance on that discredited pseudo-science, astrology. “I am not a believer in astrology,” he counters. It is, we agree, our old friend over-analysis, whereby too close an examination of statistical data throws up random correlations that don’t actually mean anything.”