Fear and Loathing on Wall Street

Are you watching the markets lately? I mean, who isn't, even if you don't have money in them?

Here's another opportunity to practice using your intuition/psychic senses on a real world matter, with immediate feedback. There are 2 ways to do this, and I'll discuss the easy way first:

1. Pick an index to which you have no attachment, like the Hang Seng. Asian indexes are great because they open at hours when no sane American is watching the markets, unless it's his or her business to do so, and they close before we get up in the morning.
   
2. Before you get up in the morning, check in with yourself, asking, did the index close higher or lower than it closed yesterday (extra credit if you want to guess percentage).
3. Notice how you get your information: did you see a chart in your mind's eye? an arrow? another sort of picture? Did someone whisper in your ear? Did you feel something, and if so, where? Did you 'just know'?
   
4. Look online (perhaps here) to see how you did.
   
5. Keep track -- a little journal is best.
   

Now for the more difficult way, because you are emotionally invested.

1. Pick an index (or stock, or ETF, or whatever) in which you are invested.
   
2. Since it is most likely in the US, during the trading day, ask yourself at least once, is it higher than the last time I looked?
   
3. Notice how you get your information: did you see a chart in your mind's eye? an arrow? another sort of picture? Did someone whisper in your ear? Did you feel something, and if so, where? Did you 'just know'?
4. Look online (perhaps here) to see how you did.
5. Keep track -- a little journal is best. Does your emotional involvement screw up your perception?
   

The whole point of this is to develop your own internal date base on how you get information, what information tends to be right, and what tends to be wrong, so you know when to pay attention to it. It was only by doing this that I learned that my 'pictures' and 'voices' tended to be right, but my feelings were only projections of my own fear.