Stocks jumped higher last week as positive US employment numbers convinced more investors that the recovery could actually be real. Stocks in New York were 3% higher with the Dow closing at 10,566 and the S&P at 1138. It was much the same story in Mumbai as Sensex added 3% to close at 16,994 while the Nifty finished at 5088 as investors basked in the afterglow of the union budget. This bullish outcome was largely in keeping with expections as the midweek Venus-Uranus conjunction kept the bears at bay and fueled enough optimism to take prices to within a few percent of their January highs.
Interestingly, once Venus began separating from Uranus, the post-budget rally in Mumbai stalled while New York enjoyed more gains on Friday. As always, transit influences form a foundation from which the relevant natal charts pick and choose to resonate different energies. Last week I wondered if the recent rally might stumble as Venus left the friendly confines of sidereal Aquarius and the clustering of benefic planets there. The jury is still out on that hypothesis, although the strong showing of US and European markets on Friday would suggest that the Aquarian bulls are doing just fine, thank you, even without Venus. New York continued to rise despite the departure of Venus, probably due to favourable midpoint activation among the stellium of Mercury, Jupiter, Sun and Uranus.
There is a genuine chance for a shake up this week as Venus (7 Pisces) moves into opposition aspect with Saturn (7 Virgo) early in the week. Given Saturn's well deserved reputation for all things gloomy, this is not a positive influence and the proximity of Mars (6 Cancer) by degree to both planets has the potential to seriously interrupt the prevailing mood. To make things more interesting, Mars ends its retrograde cycle and turns direct on Wednesday. This will inject an additional layer of Martian energy into the mix and could exaggerate moves in either direction. However, the fact that Mars is, by nature, a malefic planet tips the probabilities towards the bears here. At the same time, the clustering of planets in the second half of Aquarius is still a potential source of optimism here so some up days are still likely, especially later in the week as Mercury approaches the Sun.
