Stocks hold their ground

Stocks were mostly unchanged last week as the early selloff from the Venus-Mars-Saturn alignment was offset by late week strength on the Mercury-Saturn square aspect. In New York, the Dow closed at 8439 while the S&P ended at 918. In Mumbai, the Sensex ended Friday's session at 14,764 and the Nifty at 4375. I thought the market would be more negative here, mostly because I thought the Mercury-Saturn aspect would tend to encourage more selling. As it turned out, the Mercury-Saturn aspect on Thursday and Friday was a net positive for stocks, perhaps a reflection of the improved condition of Mercury's dispositor, Venus, which had just passed its conjunction with Mars.

This week looks more positive as benefics Mercury (1 Gemini) and Venus (1 Taurus) move into harmonic conjunction by midweek. What makes gains more likely is that this Mercury-Venus association will feed straight into the Jupiter-Neptune (2 Aquarius) conjunction. While some pullbacks are possible Monday or perhaps later in the week, some of this positive energy seems likely to predominate here. Even with the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction now moving retrograde, this rally seems like it has further to go. The next exact conjunction of Jupiter and Neptune occurs Friday, July 10 and the current period is likely to provide support for current levels. After that, the solar eclipse of July 21 may signal a shift in energy that could interrupt the prevailing upward trend.

Week of June 22 - 26

Stocks lost ground around the world last week as prospects for recovery suffered on poor US housing data. In New York, the Dow closed down 3% at 8539 while the S&P finished at 921. Indian stocks also declined almost 5% as the Sensex ended Friday's trading at 14,521 and the Nifty at 4313. As if to underline the importance of Jupiter and the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction in this spring rally, stocks moved lower Monday the same day that Jupiter turned retrograde. As I noted last week, these retrograde stations can often coincide with market reversals and this one was a textbook case. I had thought we might see more upside midweek on the Sun-Jupiter aspect, but that was not enough to move markets higher. Mumbai only saw a gain Tuesday as well as a nice move higher right at the close Friday. The Venus-Mars conjunction did not coincide with much in the way of a correction, and indeed US stocks enjoyed a late week bounce.

This week has a good chance to start higher as Venus passes Mars on Monday. Monday will also feature the Gemini New Moon in close opposition to Pluto, so this may increase the size of the price move. The Pluto opposition often creates problems for government and authority, although this needn't have any immediate negative market consequences. As the Mercury square with Saturn tightens into a conjunction by Friday, the market may well turn bearish again and make the week negative overall. It will be interesting to watch how Jupiter's new retrograde condition will affect aspects involving faster moving planets. While still benefic and supportive of higher prices, we may find that an aspect with Jupiter doesn't produce the same kind of lift that we've seen in the past two to three months. Overall, I don't think this will be a huge pullback, especially in the US market, and next week we could well see more strength. Watch for gold to move higher early in the week but the rally should fade fairly quickly.

Week of June 15 - 19

Stocks mostly treaded water last week on mixed bag of economic news. New York continued to trade well above its 200-day moving average, as the Dow closed Friday at 8799 while the S&P finished at 946. In Mumbai, losses in the beginning and end of the week offset midweek gains as the Nifty closed at 4583 and the Sensex at 15,237. This outcome was not unexpected, as I noted the possibility that the bullishness of Mercury-Jupiter-Neptune pattern could be counteracted by the negativity of the Mercury-Mars velocity equivalence. Interestingly, Mumbai's trading patterns seemed to bear more resemblance to the transit aspects as Tuesday and Wednesday did see a rise with selling late in the week. By contrast, New York saw some modest gains only late in the week, although they were large enough to change the basically uncommitted tone for the week.

With Jupiter turning retrograde Monday, we have another reason to consider the chances of significant correction across markets this week. When planets change their direction, markets can often mark a reversal in their direction. Given that markets have been generally rising lately, this Jupiter retrograde influence makes some kind of pullback somewhat more likely over the coming days. With the Sun moving into position with the bullish Jupiter-Neptune-Uranus alignment early and midweek, I would think that some gains are likely before any possible move lower. With Sun-Jupiter-Neptune lining up for the bulls this week, the bears can ponder the negative potential of benefic Venus coming in contact with malefic Mars by next weekend. Since aspects usually express their energy before forming an exact angle, one would think the days before the conjunction on Sunday, June 21 would be more prone to negativity. But perhaps the key word here is "usually".

Jupiter-Neptune still in control

Stocks gained 3% last week to new 2009 highs on improved prospects for a quick recovery. Most of the week's gains came on Monday's session with some levelling off afterwards, as the Dow closed at 8763 and the S&P at 940. In Mumbai, anticipation of economic reforms in July's Union Budget helped push stocks higher as the Nifty closed at 4586 and the Sensex at 15,103. Much of the early week bullishness came off as expected on the Venus-Jupiter-Neptune alignment as benefic Venus was the trigger to release the optimism of Jupiter. The Mars-Rahu square could be implicated in Wednesday's decline, but the pullback was more muted than expected. And Friday's Sun-Saturn square was only malefic enough to force a mostly flat outcome. Even if Jupiter is now separating from Neptune, their proximity seems to be close enough to be overriding other potentially offsetting influences.

We can see a couple apparently positive aspects forming early this week. Venus trines Pluto on Monday, while Mercury moves into alignment with Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus on Tuesday and Wednesday. Of these two aspects, the Mercury would seem to be more reliable to produce an up day or two. Later in the week the picture gets murkier, although there are no clearly negative aspects. Nonetheless, if there is going to be profit taking this week, I think the late week is a better candidate. Another clue that we could see some kind of correction starting perhaps midweek and beyond is that Mercury and Mars will be moving at the same velocity -- 44 minutes of arc per day as of Wednesday. The malefic influence of Mars may be transmitted to the trading impulse of Mercury and push prices lower. The timing of this influence is fairly close to the Mercury-Jupiter- Neptune aspect, so it's conceivable that there will be some balancing out. And given the tenacious optimism of Jupiter and Neptune, it's hard to picture a big decline here, the separating aspect notwithstanding.

Venus gives market that loving feeling

Stocks rose globally today as Venus formed a positive alignment with Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus. Both US and Indian stocks rose more than 2% as both markets achieved new highs with the Dow closing above 8700 and the Nifty pushing past 4500. This outcome was very much expected since Venus, the planet of all things good, activated the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction. The US market traded at its 200-day moving average, a potentially significant level of resistance. A rise tomorrow is possible as Venus may show a little more love to the bulls, but the rest of the week looks more like a minefield that could see profit taking and then some.