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/

What’s Happening With The Stock Market????

Amazing downturn these last few weeks on Wall Street. It goes down when the bailout bill does not pass. Then it goes down when the amended bailout does pass. Then it goes down some more for who knows what reason. From a high in the 14,000 range, it has fallen to below 9,000. What is going on astrologically?
For one thing, the period of Mercury retrograde has not helped us to deal with the mortgage crisis, the foreclosure crisis, the credit crunch, or any of the other negative news. Mercury is finally going direct this Wednesday, Oct. 15. It will be none too soon. But of course Mercury goes retrograde three times a year, so we cannot lay everything at his dainty winged feet. He’s only the messenger, after all.
I like to go back to fundamentals as laid out by Barbara Koval, especially in her book, Time & Money: The Astrology of Wealth. Let’s look first at her chart for the birth of the New York Stock Exchange: founding on May 17, 1792, New York, NY, about 10 am Eastern. Ten degrees Leo rising, with Uranus at 15 degrees Leo, and 29 degrees Aries at the Midheaven. Mars at 18 Virgo and the North Node at zero degrees Libra in the second house; Jupiter and Neptune at 22 and 27 degrees Libra in the third; Pluto at 23 degrees Aquarius in the seventh; Moon and Saturn at 19 and 26 degrees Aries in the ninth house; Venus at 5 degrees Mercury retrograde at 23 degrees and the Sun at 27 degrees Taurus in the tenth.
Drat! Wouldn’t you know that Mercury would be retrograde in the birth chart of the major stock exchange of this country? Would that account for the continual cycles of boom and bust that this country has suffered?
Koval says that transiting Pluto was square the stock market ascendant when the market dropped 500 points in 1987. Currently, Pluto is trining the stock market Midheaven -- clearly, trines are not always nicey-nicey. But look at planets and points at late degrees in the stock market chart -- the MC at 29 Aries, Saturn at 26 Aries, Sun at 27 Taurus,
Neptune at 27 Libra.
What did I say in my article about planets in late degrees about these signs?? Late Taurus points promise financial ups and downs. Uff da. Late Aries points are signs of those who gain fame and fortune by being pioneers -- and certainly, it is very possible even now to get to the top with a lot of hard work if you have a new, innovative product. Libra, what the heck is Libra doing here? Well, let’s see, Neptune here rules the eighth house of pooled resources, which describes the pooling of funds in the market thru buying stocks. It also presaged the enormous growth in the stock market when pooled mutual funds and pension money became popular vehicles for investment.
Sun, Mercury and Venus in Taurus have given it lasting influence in growing wealth and assets, and denote its connection to banking. But Mars in the second house, Moon in Aries, and an angular Pluto put an accent on debt and also on speculation rather than investment. What is disturbing with this chart is that the ruler of the tenth house is in the second -- which Koval takes to mean that the banks are in control of wealth here. Then she says: “If the banks fail, so does the system.” Uh oh.
Koval also frequently defines Uranus not as shocks to the system or upsets and so forth; she defines it as foreign funds. And Uranus moving through Pisces in this chart’s eighth house of pooled resources is pretty accurate in describing the ocean of foreign investment in our markets; it’s the major reason Wall Street has kept afloat these past several years. It does not seem like the Chinese or Europeans will pull out immediately.
Uranus will not exit the eighth house till it reaches 2 degrees 53 minutes of Aries.
Transiting Saturn is also closing in on the chart’s natal Mars at 18 Virgo in the second house. Not a good sign. Transiting Neptune is approaching natal Pluto, the wipeout planet, at 23 Aquarius. This is not a good sign either. Possibly one of the reasons that drops in the market often occur in the fall, is that the transiting Sun passes over the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction. Jupiter magnifies everything it touches, and here it magnifies the evaporation (Neptune) of money.
Contacts of transiting Sun to other transiting planets tends to bring a bit of a high to the market. Right now, the transiting planets feature Saturn in Virgo, the retrograde Mercury in Libra, Ceres also in Libra, then Mars (debt) and Venus (cash) in Scorpio (which should bring a mild uptick), and Pluto in Sag. The Sun does not contact a strong upward force till it meets up with Jupiter in Capricorn in January.
It may shock you to know that the Dow had not broken the 3,000 mark by 1990. Is a Dow at five times that level -- flirting with the 15,000 range -- even supportable? Was it ever supportable? Or was it just a Neptune dream, the Neptune that drives the market upward based on nothing but hope and faith in tomorrow?
It would be crushing if all the market growth fueled by the technological advances of the 1990s, the invention of mutual funds and index funds, the advent of cheap do-it-yourself trading services, and access to international investment markets were wiped away in one fell swoop by the presto-chango, now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t transit of Pluto -- the wipeout planet, the one who makes you a millionaire and then a pauper just so you don’t get a big head. Pluto is like the gold in the film “Treasure of Sierra Madre”. Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston and Tim Holt work like dogs to dig out the ore from the high sierras, and in the end the wind blows it all back to the mountains from which it came.
Cie la vie. Ciao, Fortune. Hello, bankruptcy.
[I really should not end on such a low note. Markets go up, markets go down, they go up again. That's how it is. Unfortunately, markets are getting more volatile due to computer programmed trades and instant transmission of trading information. But stop a minute and recall how the 500-point drop of 1987 was soon erased and the market sought new highs. Things will turn around again. But we all need to be vigilant that we buy well-run companies with no accounting funny-stuff.]