Trick or Treat... What Does The Market Have In Store???

On this Halloween eve, it is a good time to reflect on the origins of this spook-filled holiday dating back to the Celts who lived 2000 years ago. Natives of the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, the Celts celebrated their new year on November 1st. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter... a time of year that was filled with hardships and often associated with human death.

Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated the festival of Samhain (Video: Timothy Dickinson tells the intriguing tale of why we celebrate Halloween, and it's evolution from Samhain, an ancient Celtic Harvest Festival.), when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future.

Do you think we need that now??? Shall we conjure up a spirit or two to help unfold the future direction of this economic crisis and real estate upheaval? I don't know about you, but I plan to put a scary mask on a pole right on the beach with one question written in the sand... "Is the recovery for real and how long will it take?" Do you think there will be an answer as the sun rises Sunday morning?