Steve Bodow

Funds also are under fire for their less-than-friendly reputation among consumers. With arcane fees, tax complexities and reporting anomalies, funds virtually specialize in making comparison shoppers feel incompetent. And guess what? People hate to feel incompetent.

In 1999′s bull market, mutual funds saw net contributions drop by 30 percent from the previous year. Many investors have realized that while individual stocks may carry greater short-term risks than mutual funds, they can assemble their own diversified stock portfolio at no greater risk. The host of e-brokerages and free portfolio-tracking Web sites, equipped with financial tools, has made it relatively easy and inexpensive for investors to serve as their own fund manager at a cost they can understand. Ten bucks a trade is 10 bucks a trade.

Compare this with mutual funds. A typical fund ad — for example, the Strong Opportunity Fund — touts itself in Money’s July issue as having an average 10-year return of 18.68 percent. Not too bad. But the ad doesn’t explain the fund’s expenses. After spending 15 minutes searching Strong’s Web site — this on a fast connection — I found a page that said the fund’s expenses “are calculated on a rolling basis,” hardly satisfying my curiosity. A little more digging turned up another page listing its annual expenses at 1.19 percent a year, or $119 for every $10,000 invested. It also disclosed that the fund charges no one-time sales fees, or “loads.” (Many funds charge a load fee either up front, on the back end or both for the privilege of handing over your money.) The information may have been harder to find than a John Rocker fan in the South Bronx, but at least it was there.

But when it came to estimating how the fund would affect my taxes, I didn’t have any luck. Again, I located data deep within the Web site. Last year, with the fund’s shares trading mainly in the mid-$40s, short-term capital gains amounted to $2.06 per share, while long-term capital gains came out to $4.29. Had I owned shares, I would’ve paid the IRS just under $3 a share, regardless of whether I sold my portion or not. That unavoidable tax bill would have eaten a good portion of my profits.

If the fund industry had customers more in mind, it would find ways to clarify this muddy mess. But opacity works well for many managers. It camouflages the fact that so many get paid for investment “expertise,” even though a mindless index fund that tracks the S&P 500 often outperforms them. (Over the past 15 years, the average actively managed large-cap fund had an annual after-tax return of 12.2 percent, compared with 16.7 percent for an S&P 500 index fund, according to the Wall Street Journal.)

In fairness, fund managers face an uphill battle trying to compete with the index model. Let’s say our old grade-school chums, Goofus and Gallant, both have $10,000. Gallant puts his money in the Vanguard 500 Index fund, which by definition remains 100 percent invested in the S&P 500 Index, or all stocks.

Goofus, meanwhile, chooses a large-cap stock fund, whose well-educated chieftains do lots of research, schmooze with CFOs, attend conferences and so on. Because they’re always looking for new opportunities, they usually have some assets in cash — perhaps 3 to 5 percent. So the 10 grand Goofus put in his stock fund is really about $9,600 in stocks and $400 in cash. Now imagine that both Goofus and Gallant have a goal of turning their $10,000 into $11,000. The index will have to rise 10 percent, while Goofus’ equity holdings will have to rise by about 14 percent or 40 percent more than the index fund just to match its results.

The average actively managed fund also flipped over 90 percent of its holdings last year, chalking up massive brokerage and capital-gains bills. With the numbers so stacked against them, why are there still thousands of fund managers trying to beat the more reliable index formula? Easy answer: because it’s a great way to make a living. Despite their poor records, they continue to pull in new investors — partly by obscuring their true costs and performance.

There is a straightforward step the industry could take. It could develop a standard way of showing returns after expenses, fees and taxes for average investors. (SEC officials have proposed something along these lines to loud industry objections.) Managers argue that customers fall into different tax brackets and remain invested for different lengths of time. All true enough. But instead of skirting the thorny issues of taxes and fees, fund managers should give us the real returns for say, a median-income investor — married, two kids, $65,000. Trust us, we’ll figure out for ourselves whether our taxes would be higher or lower.

More important, we’d have a much truer apples-to-apples way of comparing costs, a clearer idea of what’s happening with our money and a greater sense of security — which is what we were all after in the first place.

But after a decade of unprecedented economic gains for the nation’s wealthiest, you’d think a gift-wrapped $850 billion (the Treasury Department’s estimate of what the repeal would cost over the next two decades) targeted mainly at millionaires would be election-year poison. After all, people only pay estate tax on property worth more than $675,000; family-owned businesses are exempt from paying the taxman a dime until they’re worth over $1.3 million. In 1997, the last year for which the IRS provides figures, only a few thousand families had to pay any estate tax at all. It seems only President Clinton, who has vowed to veto the bill, understands the identity of the true beneficiaries.

An extraordinary 60 percent of Gallup-polled citizens support the measure. “There have been stories on network news that just didn’t make sense,” laments Michael Ettlinger, the director of tax policy at the relatively liberal Citizens for Tax Justice. “They found people being impoverished by the estate tax, which just can’t happen.” But, he contends, almost no one saw through that because, ironically, “most of the country has no experience with paying the tax.” Bruce Bartlett, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, offers a different explanation. “As the nation’s wealth rises, more and more of those clearly in the middle class are affected by the estate tax,” he recently wrote, before adding, “or at least believe that they might be.”

Where do middle-class voters get their misinformation? Perhaps from the same folks who really do have something to gain. But much of the right’s propaganda has been far-fetched at best. Perhaps most gallingly, Bartlett demands not just that we tolerate the rich, but we feel grateful for them. “The rich perform a public service. Since it’s not much fun to be rich if even the riffraff can enjoy the same products, the rich aid innovation by pushing the limit of what is possible.” His main example: appliances. The estate tax has to go because it prevents the privileged citizenry from buying next-generation microwaves, which we riffraff may someday be able to appreciate.

As though our seeming lack of adequately glorious kitchen equipment weren’t enough to convince us of the tax’s injustice, Bartlett adds that it is also anti-women. Why are women the levy’s “chief victims?” Because wives usually survive their husbands, and one pays no estate tax on money inherited from a spouse. The family’s estate tax doesn’t come due until she passes on. First she dies; then she is victimized. Twisting words, Bartlett attempts to portray his fellow repealers in, of all things, a progressive feminist light.

The Heritage Foundation, the arch-conservative think tank, summarizes the issues in a similar way, focusing first on another of the estate tax’s great victims: minority businesspeople who supposedly “suffer anxious moments wondering whether the savings they have built … will be destroyed.”

Appealing to core liberal constituencies is a crafty rhetorical move … and awfully cynical. The fact remains that the overwhelming majority of estate taxes are coughed up by richly endowed Caucasians. That’s not to say the Beltway-based foundation has forgotten the rich, who it says invest fewer of their ducats in productive enterprises because, thanks to the estate tax, the government grabs more than half of whatever they don’t spend in their time on this earthly plane. And this — not, say, simple lust for material goods — is what forces them to “buy vacations in Vail and fine art in Lisbon.”

But according to Heritage’s own numbers the tax doesn’t take more than half the assets of any estate that has less than $5 million in taxable dollars. We’re not talking about a lot of people here. And furthermore: Lisbon? Heritage also states that killing the death tax would not, as one might expect, increase the budget deficit. Why? Because there would (they assume) also be matching cuts in social spending. A nice ‘n’ tidy fix. And also stark proof that poorer families would, under this right-wing plan, suffer directly in order to pay for richer folks’ increased fortunes.

And even further to the right, the libertarian Cato Institute claims that the estate tax encourages a spendthrift, “die-broke” mentality — a problem 98 percent of the country can only dream of having. CATO conveniently ignores that no one starts paying until they have $675,000 in assets. To someone with tens of millions in stocks, bonds and real estate, $675k may sound like “broke.” But to most Americans, broke is a lot closer to zero. Yes, most of us are getting richer as the years pass. But the exemption is rising, too. By 2006 you won’t have to pay estate tax unless you are, literally, a millionaire.

There are many ways of making the estate tax fairer and less threatening to whatever portion of the upper-middle class might be lucky enough to ever have to deal with it. And the tax should be simpler, with fewer loopholes and rates that make collecting it unduly complicated and expensive. Congressional Democrats have already made a few proposals, such as greatly raising the exemption level for family-owned businesses.

But ideologues on the other side rejected such notions without a thought. (To his credit, Bartlett has criticized the Republican leadership for not compromising.) The GOP Congress insists on getting rid of the tax wholesale: a lopsided sop for the wealthy at the one time in American history when they need it least. If the estate tax is repealed, will they buy fewer Colorado condos and Portuguese paintings? No — they’ll buy more. And the rest of us will foot the bill.

That’s why repeal really is about opportunity — an opportunity for the Democrats to aggressively expose their rivals’ abject fealty to money. People want a tax cut, but not one that disproportionately jeopardizes most Americans’ financial future for the continued enrichment of the gilded minority. If the Democrats get their act together, they could make a strong case that an overzealous GOP has shown us their true motivations — and send them running for cover.

Quarterly earnings reporting tends to create volatile times on the stock market, with seemingly small departures from anticipated results causing steep, swift swings in share prices. (“Black October” came about partly because that’s when traditionally lackluster third-quarter results arrive.) To get a read on the market, it’s critically important to know what the Street’s fortune tellers expect from the most-watched companies.

When Wall Street talks about earnings expectations for a particular stock, it’s referring to analysts’ consensus of estimates. But it’s an open secret that Wall Street’s army of prognosticators takes a conservative tack when putting together their “official” guesses. CEOs and CFOs often will coax analysts toward lower numbers to increase the possibility of hitting the goal. And analysts, loath to appear overly optimistic and risk steering clients into stocks that fall short, won’t publish their true expectations. Instead — in informal conjunction with private investors, company insiders and others closely following a stock — they privately rely on an additional number, known as a “whisper number,” which reflects their real thoughts.

The market increasingly evaluates a company’s performance in comparison to this mystically derived figure. But since they’re unofficial, whisper numbers can be hard to come by.

Along comes WhisperNumber.com, which compiles its namesake figures from points throughout the investing universe. (For a full discussion of whisper numbers’ source and accuracy, check out a past Salon article.) Because whispers are intrinsically secret, the site’s methodology is less than airtight. But its figures seem to be better predictors of how the market will react to earnings announcements than the official consensus. Its whisper estimates have come as close or closer to the actual reported figures about 70 percent of the time, according to site co-founder John Scherr.

Below are several tech stocks whose near-term fate hangs on how their imminent quarterly reports stack up against expectations — especially the behind-the-scenes ones. Like Yahoo, these companies could stir up other parts of the market. So watch closely.

Tuesday, July 18

Microsoft

Consensus: $0.41 Whisper $0.41

Convicted monopolist and (not coincidentally) history’s greatest profit machine, Microsoft moves the market, plain and simple. As a Dow component and the biggest single piece in the NASDAQ pie, MSFT on a down day could cause an earthquake on Wall Street. Historically, Gates & Co. haven’t disappointed (aside from its less-than-stellar results last quarter), so today’s announcement should prove a neutral event. However, if Windows 2000 did better than dour early rumors suggested, look for the stock to fly. In light of its intense legal battles, the software king would have proven it executed amid huge adversity and be promptly rewarded. An earnings number higher than $0.42 a share this evening also could spell a market-wide rally tomorrow. Merely hitting the mark likely would revert the stock’s direction to a function of whatever new break-up scenario emerges.

Wednesday, July 19

Qualcomm

Consensus: $0.27 Whisper: $0.28

Last year’s highflier lagged in the first half of this year, though you can hardly blame it after its stock’s absurd 28-fold gains. The recent loss of its technological monopoly in the burgeoning South Korean market hasn’t helped. Still, the wireless industry’s bright prospects amount to an article of faith among tech investors. (Witness Monday’s 10 percent run-up as investors salivated over future earnings fueled by freshly secured international patents.) Qualcomm isn’t just an important wireless stock, it’s the wireless stock when it comes to next-generation mobile phone chips. Motorola reported good numbers last week, which bodes well for QCOM; good numbers likely would give a boost to other mobile-equipment makers.

Thursday, July 20

America Online

Consensus: $0.11 Whisper: $0.13

This is one stock where the whisper number certainly will influence how investors judge earnings data. If analysts were intent on making estimates conform to true expectations, they would have raised their official numbers after Yahoo’s blowout report proved that Web ad dollars still were flowing strongly. No analyst had the guts. Considering AOL’s stock already has risen about 10 percent since Yahoo’s announcement, the market has priced in some potential upside. But if the Internet provider edges past the $0.13 whisper, it should pop another few points. It could also fuel a second-burst rally in other Internet stocks, which tend to trade in a pack behind Yahoo and AOL. Also, look for subscriber growth. Last quarter, the company added 2.1 million subscribers, for a total of 25.8 million worldwide. Another 2 million subs added in the June quarter and the company will be on track, especially if it reports good international momentum.

Wednesday, July 26

Amazon.com

Consensus: $0.35 Whisper: $0.28

June 23: Lehman Brothers analyst Ravi Suria issues a report saying the leading e-retailer will run out of money shortly after Christmas; Amazon falls 19 percent that day, from $42 a share to $33 7/8.

July 14: Salomon Smith Barney analyst Tim Albright says Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos has plenty of money; Amazon jumps 21 percent from bell to bell, up from $35 to $42 1/2.

Two things such round-trip confusion makes clear: (1) Everyone is nervous about this stock, which represents the entire concept of e-commerce. (2) These days, AMZN traders think as much about the company’s balance sheet (how much money it has) as its income statement (how much money it makes). Hard evidence only comes out four times a year. The critical number next Wednesday: cash. If Amazon is burning bucks faster than Salomon’s Albright expects and says it had less than $920 million in the bank at the end of June then the share-price yo-yo will head back where Lehman’s Suria first sent it.

Two ironies here. The first has to do with how the Gap got into this pickle. After all, it did just what Wall Street wanted it to do.

Last summer, the Gap caught analysts’ flak for failing to offer more exciting and innovative apparel, unlike such competitors as Abercrombie & Fitch and American Eagle Outfitters. The Gap’s incessant emphasis on the same basic stuff just wasn’t drawing in customers, who last year wanted racier, trendier styles. So, the famously flexible company decided to take more risks with its product line.

That, of course, was then.

The Gap fumbled by putting itself in an unfamiliar position — chasing trends rather than setting them. As Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown analyst Marcia Aaron said: The Gap was “definitely a victim of fashion problems; they tried to take their fashion too young.” The company’s warning revealed that store managers had to put lots of stuff on sale to move it out the door. Aaron also attributed the Gap’s shortfall to a lack of exciting spring fashions, uppity gas prices, chilly spring temperatures, high credit card interest rates and the fact that “it’s a strong music year, so kids are spending more money on music.” (Hey, Metallica, call off the dogs! Turns out Napster isn’t your problem, it’s the rag trade’s!)

Whatever the reasons, the Gap already is responding as it best knows how — with fresh marketing. Its men’s department on its Web site offers a glimpse of what I expect to see a lot of this fall: an emphasis on the office. Trendy stretch shirts were just a transitional item, something the company introduced for “fashion” that it has now recast as “wear to work.” That utilitarian imperative will be the Gap’s big theme in the coming months. Look for more clean-cut, conservative designs that no boss could question and fewer bright-pink Capri pants (now on sale at Gap stores nationwide).

The second irony is that the pickle the Gap got into seems to be remarkably unsour. After last Thursday’s announcement that June’s same-store sales declined by 2 percent, Gap stock actually jumped more than 26 percent, to 37 7/8 at Monday’s close. The shares had hit a 52-week low of $28 less than a month earlier.

You see, the key to investing in fashion is to be forward looking. (Just not too much, lest you risk overexposure.) Before last week’s mea culpa, investors knew the Gap would be making some type of confession, they just didn’t know how bad it would be. Now that everything’s out in the open, and the news wasn’t as bad as some had thought, they’re looking ahead to the retailer’s promise that it will meet analysts’ expectations for the second half of the year.

If you play the fashion stock market, you can’t always rely on a company’s new products to match mercurial consumer tastes. You can only count on its management’s ability to adapt quickly and consistently. Industry insiders almost universally regard the Gap as a well-managed company, its current troubles notwithstanding. Now that prodigal CEO Mickey Drexler has returned to play a role comparable to the one Steve Jobs filled at Apple, investors expect a Gap renaissance. (Granted, a less flamboyant renaissance, with designs just left of boring rather than barely right of radical.) So look for the Gap’s flagship chain to become less teen-centric, and instead saturate us with a five-day-a-week casual campaign. Also, expect more family-friendly messages from Old Navy. As for Gap stock, consider this a pre-back-to-school sale. It’s a good time to buy, especially below $35 a share.

But rather than commiserating in wound-licking mutual consolation, the crowd seemed utterly relaxed: almost perversely confident in their industry’s future, and by extension, their own destiny. The Alley’s first-generation true believers pride themselves on having gotten into the business before the money flooded in. And now that the tidal surf appears to be at least temporarily receding, many of them are glad to have their turf back to themselves.

“This period has made my life so much easier,” says Jason McCabe Calacanis, conference organizer and Silicon Alley Reporter’s CEO, referring to the time “after the crash” — a phrase on few lips here, but on the tips of many a tongue.

At 29, the self-made duke of the Alley has made it his business to know everything going on in New York’s Net industry. “I don’t have so many idiots banging down my door to tell me why they’re the next Yahoo,” Calacanis says. “I have serious businesspeople explaining how to own and run effective growth businesses.”

Such a spiel would sound like pure spin if the attitude weren’t so pervasive. Attendees spoke of 2000 being “another ’97″ — the last time money got tight in the Alley, but before the Internet-IPO craze. The difference with this round of consolidation is that this time the world is watching: unshaken optimism mixed with gallows humor. One woman introduced herself at a seminar as a former employee of the famously demised Boo.com. “So did you cash in your stock?” jibed someone in the room. Big laugh.

“No, I framed it,” she shot back. Huge laugh. And no wonder. Here’s a woman who endured the worst the industry has to offer — bankruptcy, a highly public closing, worthless options — and survived. With style, even — she had the darkest tan in the room.

The failures, near-failures and impending failures have been … well, choose your rejuvenating metaphor: a tonic, needed pruning, brush fire or coffee enema. One Alley headhunter reports that entry-level salaries have already begun to descend — no more $50,000 gigs for B.A.-holding 22-year-olds. She predicts mid-level executive compensation also will level off in months to come. Senior talent, however, should remain in tight demand. Great news for a group of long-standing industry veterans: They’ll still get top dollar although they’ll pay their staffs less, making it easier to run a business in directions other than into the ground.

“No one’s getting funded right now, so everyone’s reengineering their companies to make them work before the cash burns down,” says one e-tailing company chief, a seven-year new media veteran who’s moving his now-$1-a-share company out of retail and into direct marketing. His worst-case scenario? He runs out of money, sells some software assets, spends a few months in his Hamptons house and brainstorms the next idea. By that time the money will be flowing again.

And David Bennahum’s ready to supply it. A journalist-turned-VC at a firm called New Things, Bennahum claims it’s a much better time to have a venture fund than six months ago. “I’m getting better deals.” He says the unspoken crash “separates the really committed people from the bandwagoners who used to be in the garment business and will be in whatever else tomorrow.”

Taking a breather before the second night’s cocktail party, Calacanis sat at a patio table and surveyed the grounds at the suburban mansion where the Alley decampment took place: rolling hills, lush trees, a pool and a big white tent with open bar. “Nothing that happened in the last five years is even going to matter,” he says. “It’s only going to get bigger — soon we won’t even talk about the Internet industry, it’ll just be everywhere. I’m feeling more inspired than ever.”

But one thing has changed since the Carter era. Two decades ago, most alternative energy technologies were little more than pipeline dreams. Now, many are much closer to reality, and within reach by mid-decade. Vice President Al Gore today is expected to call for billions in tax breaks, low-interest loans and other federal subsidies to encourage consumers to buy clean-energy products, such as alternative-fuel cars, to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

And earlier this month, DaimlerChrysler announced that it would invest $1 billion in fuel-cell research and development. The carmaker’s venture shows how alternative energy has evolved from a lefty fantasy to economic viability. And the faster oil prices rise, the better alternative fuels will look to ordinary consumers.

As usual, the stock market picked up on the trend early. From January to mid-March, eager buyers sent several alt-fuel companies’ shares skipping sharply higher — more than 100 percent in some cases. But with the subsequent tech sector decline, most returned to their January levels.

Then a few weeks ago, as news of drastic inflation at the pump recaptured headlines, these stocks began another run-up — a rally we’re in the midst of today. And with air conditioners to run, gas tanks to fill for summer vacations and an election cycle to endure, we’ll have oil’s intractably high price weighing upon us for the next few months.

Speculators are bound to seek out ways to profit from drivers’ high-profile ire, and some will surely flock to alt-fuel stocks. “It has a ton to do with all the energy commodities having spiked,” says Eric Prouty, an energy technology analyst at Robertson Stephens. “As much of this is investor perception as it is reality, but people are thinking that higher oil costs bring other sources’ costs into line.”

A few companies are particularly prominent in efforts to bring different fuels to market. They’re all “pure plays” — i.e., 100 percent involved in this area of business. They’re stocks for investors looking to profit from the alternative-energy trend before it really gets underway.

(A cautionary note: They are volatile, high-risk stocks. Anyone considering these investments should do a good deal of homework first.)

British Columbia’s Ballard Power Systems (NASDAQ: BLDP) produces fuel cells that combine hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity. These cells don’t produce particulate pollution or carbon monoxide, so greenheads love ‘em. Ballard’s potentially breakthrough business is in the automotive industry, where it has deals with DaimlerChrysler, Ford and others to develop fuel cell cars. Ford and Daimler’s latest Ballard-propelled prototypes can travel about 300 miles without refilling.

Along with high gas prices, state laws are driving Ballard’s new-model engine technology. A California law, for example, calls for 10 percent of new car sales by 2003 to be “low-emissions,” or at least partly dependent on alternative fuels. But many in the industry doubt that will happen. not least because Ballard doesn’t expect to have engines ready for mass production before 2004. At a minimum, though, automakers have to show they’re trying, which means continuing to support Ballard’s R&D.

If — and it’s a big if — Ballard ever does capture 10 percent of California’s automotive engine market, its current $7.5 billion market cap (at $89 a share) will look like peanuts. Getting there will take even-higher gas prices in tandem with some crafty design and marketing from carmakers.

Think of Ballard as equivalent to an Internet play: Profits remain pretty far off, but if it works, it works big.

Fuel cells from PlugPower (NASDAQ: PLUG) use the same chemistry as Ballard’s, but instead of cars, the upstate New York company focuses on homes. By early 2002, the company will begin selling a natural-gas-based fuel cell to supply the electricity needs (and heat as well) to a 3,000-square-foot house. The cells, roughly the size of small refrigerators, sit outside and connect to the main power circuit, similar to a utility line. But once a PlugPower cell gets running, it’s off the grid — impervious to power outages.

PlugPower, like similar companies, has profited from a peace dividend. Both the Defense Department and NASA heavily subsidized early fuel-cell research and development, and today companies can redirect those technologies to consumers.

The five Wall Street analysts who cover PLUG expect the company to lose $1.31 per share this year; that loss will nearly double to $2.45 in 2001 as production expenses mount. Sales should jump substantially in 2002 when its residential fuel cells hit the market in earnest.

Unless, of course, they don’t. Product delays are the biggest near-term risk. After the company announced a delay in May, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns immediately downgraded the stock to “hold,” clipping its share value by more than 35 percent in the following days. Another such glitch could shake even long-view shareholders’ confidence. The stock closed Monday at 57 1/16, up 3 1/16.

OK, so the notion of solar energy has an admittedly ’70s crunch to it. And the photovoltaic (PV) cell business has pretty much reached technological maturity. But that doesn’t mean demand has slackened. In fact, worldwide sales will grow by a steady 20 to 25 percent for many years to come.

AstroPower: (NASDAQ: APWR), in Delaware, which makes some of the world’s most popular PV cells, will do better than that. Its profits grew about 55 percent in each of the last two years and show no signs of slowing. Analysts expect the company to earn 42 cents per share this year and 66 cents in 2001. Trading at about $30, the shares have a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 44, which is not bad for a company growing more than 50 percent annually.

AstroPower’s cells are in demand from telecom firms that need to power remote equipment such as wireless phone network equipment, as well as construction firms. Road signs, for example, increasingly get their power straight from the sun.

Robertson Stephens’ Prouty has a “buy” rating on the company. “Just because you don’t see solar cells on your neighbor’s roof doesn’t mean they’re not out there,” since three-quarters of its sales go to Europe and Japan, which have embraced alternative energy much faster than the United States has.

At least in the short term, AstroPower, Ballard and PlugPower stand to gain from this season’s oil-price obsession. What happens when that obsession subsides? Check the astrology column.