Stocks racked up more gains last week as the positive profit outlook from Wells Fargo on Thursday brought the bulls out in force yet again. The Dow closed at 8083, up less than 1% overall while the SPX finished the week at 856. Indian markets fared somewhat better over the three-day trading week and were up 3% as the Nifty closed at 3342 and the Sensex at 10,803. While I had expected more downside from the Mars-Saturn opposition, at least there was some pullback early on in the week in the US when this aspect was closest. Also the bearish Uranus ingress into sidereal Pisces did correspond with the decline below Dow 7800. The late week gain was also not too surprising given the favourable alignment of Sun-Mars-Jupiter, but I had not expected its positive effects to offset the negative patterns earlier in the week. Assessing amplitude is one of the more difficult aspects of financial astrology, after one has decided whether a particular configuration is either positive or negative.
While the bulls are on parade here and have clearly gained the upper hand in this market, I still think there is some remaining negative energy from the Uranus ingress. History tells us that Uranus' ingresses do not always translate into big declines, of course, but in instance I wonder if the release of energy might have been delayed somewhat by the approaching conjunction with Mars. Mars will conjoin Uranus in the first degree of Pisces on Wednesday. By itself, this conjunction can be a bearish pattern, and when it occurs so close to the actual ingress, it may receive an extra boost of energy. So there's still a chance for a sizable decline at some point in the week, perhaps as much as 5% on a single day. Even if the rally somehow continues early on, I think the week should be negative overall. With Venus ending its retrograde cycle on Friday, we are likely at the end of this fast rising bear market rally. It is interesting to recall that the rally began very close to the time that Venus went retrograde on March 6. Now that the cycle is ending, we will likely see the market consolidate at lower levels over the next few weeks. With Mercury turning retrograde in aspect to Rahu in early May, we may in fact see even lower prices then. Let's see how low we go here. If it's only a garden variety 3-4% correction by next Monday the 20th, then the extent of the overall decline may be more modest.
I think there is a chance for a big rally in the dollar here, with crude falling back quite a bit. Gold seems harder to read, but the Sun falling under the aspect of Saturn in the GLD natal chart suggests some late week bearishness.
