As Gen Zers opt for astrology to pick stocks, experts warn it’s ‘neither optimal nor ideal’

Mercury is in retrograde — so just how much money should you invest in certain stocks today?

That is the kind of assessment 25-year-old Stefaniya Nova makes on a day-to-day basis — and she claims to have made $46,000 (USD$31,000) in profits using astrology to pick stocks in the past three to four months.

Nova is not alone, about 62 per cent of Gen Zers surveyed by the Harris Poll in 2024 believe in astrology. The global astrology industry is expected to grow 78 per cent from 2021 to $33.8 billion (USD$22.8 billion) by 2031, a report by Allied Market Research showed

Nova, who goes by the TikTok handle @blonderichwitch, is one of many astrologers who are taking to TikTok to dole out advice on where to park one’s money and how to create more wealth based on birth charts and other astrological signs.

Every morning she scans the market to sift out the stocks she intends to trade for the day. Then she pulls out a tarot card to guide her strategy, keeping in mind the placement of the stars.

This process has helped Nova rake in over $44,500 (USD$30,000) in the span of a few months since she quit her job as a tarot reader to become a day trader.

Other tools of the trade? Her intuition.

“I don’t rely heavily on the news. It creates a noise in my head… I look at the stock. I try to see what my intuition tells me: what do I expect to happen? I rely more on myself,” she added.

While using astrology to invest might have worked out for Nova — thus far — it may not be in your interest to follow suit, especially at a time when there has been a proliferation of ‘experts’ offering financial advice on TikTok and YouTube.

So, while you may find advice on, say, using lunar cycles to gauge when to buy bitcoin, it’s best to not get swayed by it.

Take 24-year-old astrologer who goes by the name Doctor Racso.

The doctor lost all his money — $653,000 (USD$440,0000) — and went into debt due to trading based on his astrological analysis, according to a video interview published this year. Racso, whose real name is Min Khant Thaw, did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

‘Not optimal’

More than 70 per cent of Gen Zers — those born between 1997 and 2012 — in the US invest in stocks, making it their preferred investment asset, so it becomes all the more important to resort to sound investment strategies.

Relying on astrology for financial decisions is “neither optimal nor ideal,” said Natasha Knox, founder of Alaphia Financial Wellness.

“There are other avenues of self knowledge where the evidence of their efficacy is [more] robust,” the financial behavior specialist told CNBC.

The financial specialists who CNBC spoke to noted that oftentimes there could be confirmation bias at play which drives people to trust astrology for investing. The phenomenon is described as the tendency to ascribe fresh evidence to confirm one’s existing theory or belief. That, combined with pure chance.

“If you have thousands of people flipping coins, some are bound to achieve the ‘impressive’ feat of getting heads 20 times in a row,” Byoung-Hyoun Hwang, an associate professor of finance at Nanyang Technological University said.

He cautioned against relying on it for investment decisions.

“I have yet to see any solid evidence that fortune telling can reliably predict the future, let alone a company’s future performance,” the associate professor said.

Nova brushes aside the dissenters: “Everybody finds their own method [and] what works for them. It all comes down to finding what speaks to you.”