Stocks powered higher in New York last week on better than expected employment data. Despite some midweek profit taking, the Dow rose 2% to close at 9370 while the S&P finished near a key resistance level of 1010, which was the post-crash November 2008 high. This bullish outcome was more or less in keeping with my forecast last week as the Mercury-Venus aspect provided sufficient optimism to encourage risk takers. More specifically, Monday was up as expected but Thursday's anticipated gain arrived late as markets only rose Friday. In Mumbai, worries over the monsoon trumped global cues as the indexes fell 3-4%. After some early week strength that retested key resistance levels at 4700, the Nifty ended the week at 4481 while the Sensex stood at 15,160. So we did see more upside as forecast although the gains did not hold. Interestingly Thursday was higher intraday but gains disappeared by the close. This was perhaps an instance of a generally favourable transit aspect between Mercury (12 Leo) and Venus (12 Gemini) feeding into the stressful natal position of Saturn (12 Aquarius) to produce a decline instead of a rise.
Now that the triple eclipse series is behind us, we should look at this stock rally as living on borrowed time. The eclipses have lit the fuses and started the timer so it's now only a matter of the right triggering planets coming together to release the explosive bearish energy and push prices down. This week features a couple of very strong aspects which have the potential to move markets in both directions. Mars squares Saturn on Monday but this 90 degree relationship is arguably more effective since they mutually aspect one another according to classical Hindu aspecting rules. Mars casts its 4th house square aspect forward to Saturn and Saturn casts its 10th house square aspect to Mars. Since both planets are malefic, there is a probability for negative fallout here. However, as the week progresses Mars will be influenced by Jupiter's benefic rays so that could change sentiment considerably. This is all the more likely given that the Sun will be part of this multi-planet alignment.
Caveat emptor has never been better advice.
