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.
