(9 November 2015) The steep sell-off in gold last week was a nice confirmation of the inner workings of financial astrology.  Despite the beauty of this Gustav Klimt painting, Gold plunged 4% on the week closing below $1100 for the first time since August.  In last week’s post, I thought the chances were good that gold would decline given the difficult situation of the planet of Venus.  

In financial astrology, Venus is one of the main planetary significators for the price of gold (along with women and art, of course!) and when it is under pressure gold typically declines.  I had noted that Venus entered its sidereal sign of debilitation on Tuesday November 3rd.  This sign transit of Virgo lasts four weeks and is often a bearish indicator.  To top it off, Venus also conjoined Mars just the day before and was still minutes of arc past its exact conjunction.  As a malefic planet, the proximity of Mars to Venus is also a factor that often depresses gold as my investigation of previous Venus-Mars conjunctions showed fairly clearly.  As a consequence of this alignment, gold fell sharply on Tuesday as it broke a key technical support level.
 
Another angle on the collapse of gold prices can be seen through the a key natal horoscope for the yellow metal.  Gold’s first publicly traded price was established among London gold dealers on September 12, 1919.  This chart has repeatedly provided strong indications of the ups and downs of gold prices.  As a rule, close aspects involving Saturn or the Nodes (Rahu and Ketu) correspond with declines while Jupiter aspects are more bullish.  Of course, not all aspects are created equal so it is a matter of some interpretation to determine which aspect will prevail.  On the whole, Saturn aspects outweigh Jupiter aspects.  This may be an artifact of Saturn’s slower velocity, although it may just be a feature of Saturn itself. 

The current situation is clear enough: transiting Saturn (10 Scorpio) is approaching its square aspect with Neptune (13 Aquarius) in the coming weeks.  This is a negative influence although not necessarily specific to gold.  But the real problem is that the Saturn-Neptune is aligning very closely with the natal Mercury-Saturn conjunction at 11-12 Leo.  That is specific to gold.  Even worse, Saturn will be aligning with the 2nd equal house cusp (12 Scorpio) and therefore it will be afflicting the 11th equal house cusp almost exactly throughout the month of November.  The 2nd house is associated with wealth while 11th house is connected with gains — a double whammy on these "money houses".  Therefore, this close Saturn square aspect makes further declines more likely. 

The reason why gold took such a nosedive last week is that the Venus-Mars-Rahu conjunction in Virgo was in the 12th house (of loss!) and in close trine aspect with natal Ketu (5 Taurus).  Ketu is another first-rate malefic (along with Saturn and Mars) so any transit interaction with natal Ketu in this chart is likely to correlate with declines.  The whole week was negative with another large decline on Friday just as the Venus and Mars were moving into a near-exact 120-degree trine aspect with Ketu.  So between this obvious natal situation in the 1919 chart and the difficulty of Venus going into Virgo with Mars in tow, the probability of a significant decline was very high indeed last week.

Of course, Jupiter is also in the picture here as it approaches its conjunction with natal Sun and Venus in Leo.  This is likely to produce some upside in gold over the next couple of months as Jupiter turns retrograde at 29 Leo in early January, just a few degrees past the Sun-Venus pairing.  But I would think that the Saturn-Neptune square has to move away first, which may be felt only after the end of the November when the aspect begins to separate. 

Weekly Market Forecast

While gold slumped against the rising US Dollar, stocks were more mixed last week.  US markets were fairly flat while Indian stocks suffered a more significant tumble.  In last week’s market forecast, I thought we would get some downside last week given the placements of Mars and Saturn.   As expected, Wednesday and Thursday were generally lower.

Stocks extended their declines today (Monday) as Mars conjoined Rahu (North Lunar Node).   We may well see further downside this week from this malefic pairing although I would expect some upside likely on either Tuesday or Wednesday as the Sun aligns with Jupiter. Thursday’s Moon-Saturn conjunction could undermine some of this optimism, however.