Getting graphic helps financial astrologers see the larger economic patterns

by Milky Way Maid

While I do not specialize in financial astrology, I do like to look at the overall big picture indicators of an up or down market. I finally pulled out the graphic charts I had made for 2007 and 2008, and was excited to see that some major celestial events correlated to a downturn in the economy. I was more surprised to see that the recession may have started as far back as September 2007.

First, take a look at the graphic chart for 2007. You see that the transit lines for Venus, Mercury, Sun and Saturn all cross about mid-August 2007; they are at 26-29 degrees Leo; note also that Venus is retrograde at this point, and did not go direct till Sept. 8 at 16 degrees Leo. Also the Sun, Mercury, Jupiter and Pluto crossed lines about Dec. 11, 2007, at 28-29 degrees Sagittarius.

Bear with me a bit longer as we take a look at the 2008 graphic chart. It is not very unusual when Sun, Mercury and Venus cross paths, as they do June 7-8, 2008. Mars and Saturn cross in July, and then Saturn, Venus and Mercury in mid-August. The most significant event was of course in mid-September, when the stock market crashed. What astrological event happened then? Mars crashed the Venus-Mercury party with the bad news from Saturn.

Later in the year, Sun-Mercury and Mars converged at the end of November, around Thanksgiving and what should have been the kickoff for another holiday shopping season. There was no joy in Vendorville, with only Wal-Mart and Amazon claiming successful holiday sales reports.

Sharp convergences like these produce definite effects in economic indicators such as the stock market. Whether they mark highs or lows in the market depends on other factors. One factor is whether Venus is 'ahead of' or 'behind' the Sun. Venus is ahead of the Sun when moving from the Inferior Conjunction to the Superior Conjunction. Venus is behind the Sun when moving from the Superior to the Inferior Conjunction. Another factor is crossing the nodes of the Moon. This is a subject for another article, tho.

Let's go back to basic rulerships. In economics, the Sun is the vitality of the economy, gold, and a standard of value.

Mercury is traders and speculators, those who move quickly in and out of the market – and also the data that traders crunch to find opportunities. Mercury is paper money, transportation and some machinery.

Venus is investors, those who prefer to buy and hold, those who look for good value and a fair exchange. Venus also rules sugar, copper, cattle, art, jewelry, and the dollar.

Mars is debt, loans, fees and taxes. Mars represents anyone who takes a cut of your transaction: the broker, the person whose table space you rented, the loan officer, the IRS, the bank that charges interest on your loan, the credit card company that charges interest on your balance, and interest rates themselves. Mars is also the pure speculator who shorts stocks, buys distressed merchandise at auction and in general profits on the hard luck of others. He drives the hard bargain and wants something thrown in for free “just to get rid of it”. Mars also rules metals like iron and steel.

So when Mars joined up with the main trading planets in September, 2008, especially after the negative prior conjunction with so-villain Saturn, the stock market finally decided there was heck to pay for the mortgage fiasco, a fiasco that had been brewing for a couple years but which was ignored or minimized or bundled and resold till nothing more could be done.

I kept hearing from others that their mutual funds were down in their January 2008 reports. So finally I started checking around to see if there were any indicators of trouble sometime in the fall of 2007. I found a couple items.

First, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released a report dated Feb. 28, 2008 on the fourth quarter of 2007. (You can read this article at www.BEA.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2008/gdp407p.htm). It said:

The deceleration in real GDP growth in the fourth quarter primarily reflected a downturn in inventory investment and decelerations in exports, in PCE, and in federal government spending that were partly offset by a downturn in imports.
Final sales of computers contributed 0.16 percentage point to the fourth-quarter growth in real GDP after contributing 0.28 percentage point to the third-quarter growth. Motor vehicle output subtracted 0.85 percentage point from the fourth-quarter growth in real GDP after contributing 0.36 percentage point to the third-quarter growth.

Then, Peter G. Miller wrote an article for FHAloanPros.com in April 2008 in which he states: “According to the latest data available from Standard and Poors/Case-Shiller, home prices fell 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007 and were down 8.9 percent from a year earlier — the largest declines in the 20-year history of that series.”

An article on Money Morning website dates March 27, 2008, “Fourth Quarter GDP Unrevised; Flat First Quarter Expected” includes this quote: '"The credit crunch and rising inflation teamed to put the economy flat on its back in the final three months of 2007," IDEAglobal economist Joseph Brusuelas told Thomson Financial News.'

And lastly, astrologer Randall Ashbourne wrote an item titled, A Dow Theory Bear Signal (sorry I lost the exact date but sometime in the fall of 2007). In that piece he points out a bear sell signal of new lower lows in both the Dow Industrials and in the Dow Transports. In other words there was a dissonance between the amount of goods being produced and the amount of goods being transported (delivered) to retail outlets. In his words: “And again the logic is simple … the trains and trucks aren’t moving as much stuff as the factories are apparently still producing.”
So all these indicators – Dow industrials and transports, home prices, computer sales, slowing exports, all were giving us bad news by the end of 2007.

We could talk all day about technical analysis and the fine points of all these sector indicators. But the main point of this article is that the turns in the market were being signaled by the patterns in the sky made by the transiting trading planets – Sun, Venus, Mercury, (plus Mars). These patterns are what financial astrologer Barbara Koval called “the Serpent in the Sky” -- the graph of the above planets as they travel through the signs.

Hold on to this article because I will refer back to it in future articles. You might want to bookmark it or print it out so you can look at the graphic charts – or try running some graphic charts of your own.

PS -- Graphic charts can generated using the Solar Fire software. NOT selling anything, I just forgot to mention this when I posted the article.

SOURCES of Financial Data/Reports:
Fourth Quarter Report, BEA (Bureau of Economic Analysis) report, BEA.gov, released Feb. 28, 2008, www.BEA.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2008/gdp407p.htm

Miller, Peter G., “Housing Downturn: Is The End In Sight?,” FHA Loan Pros, April 17, 2008, http://www.fhaloanpros.com/2008/04/housing-downturn-is-the-end-in-sight/

Sweney, Mark, “Ad budgets cut amid fears of downturn, says Bellwether Report,” Guardian, Jan. 14, 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jan/14/advertising.marketingandpr

Yousfi, Jennifer, “Fourth Quarter GDP Unrevised; Flat First Quarter Expected,” Money Morning, March 27, 2008, http://www.moneymorning.com/2008/03/27/fourth-quarter-gdp-unrevised-flat-first-quarter-expected/