Since investing in the stock market is a little bit like reading tea leaves, artist Shing Tat Chung decided to take it all the way: he has created a stock fund that trades on superstitions.
“We have to realise that actually when a lot of money is involved, we become a whole lot more irrational and superstitious,” Chung tells Co.Design. “We tend to resort to finding ridiculous patterns, creating conspiracy theories, and rituals.” He points to an example in England, where homes at addresses involving the number 13 are automatically devalued by a few thousand pounds.
A Superstitious Fund foregrounds how irrational humans--and their machines--can be. Chung calls the fund a “superstitious automated robot," programmed with human traits--like a belief in bad luck. The fund trades stock based on numerology, astrology, and a self-taught logic built on its successes and failures. So, it’s a non-living entity that makes random decisions just like your average irrational human would.
Chung got people to invest 5,000 in his fund, aptly called A Superstitious Fund, which began trading earlier this year: Link