(30 November 2025)  Stocks rallied strongly during Thanksgiving week on renewed hopes for an interest rate cut at the next Fed meeting on December 10.  The rate cut optimism offset lingering doubts about the economic sustainability of the current AI boom.

The gains were not wholly unexpected given Monday’s Mercury-Venus conjunction.  A study of previous Mercury-Venus conjunctions suggested that stocks had a bullish bias in the aftermath of the conjunction, although the presence of retrograde Mercury complicated that view somewhat.  Whenever Venus conjoined retrograde Mercury as was the case on Monday, November 24, the window of maximum bearishness extended from 3 days before (Nov 21) until 3 days after (Nov 27).  This fairly wide effective range made it difficult to precisely forecast price action last week since the previous week had been bearish and thus could have already manifested the bearish potential of the Mercury Rx-Venus conjunction.

Nonetheless, there is some reason to think that stocks have temporarily bottomed here.  Not only are we now in the bullish post-conjunction period of Mercury and Venus, but we are also in the bullish post-trine alignment period of Jupiter and Saturn.  A previous study of 120-degree alignments of Jupiter and Saturn clearly displayed a bullish bias in the period in which Jupiter separates from its first alignment with Saturn.  This alignment made its closest angle on November 17 and is now slowing separating.  All things being equal, this should give a modest boost to financial markets in the coming weeks.

The Mars-Saturn square

Another alignment worth examining this week is the upcoming Mars-Saturn square.  On Monday, December 8, Mars will form a 270-degree square aspect with Saturn.  This 270-degree square also fulfills Vedic aspecting rules as Mars will cast its forward, counterclockwise 4th house aspect upon Saturn. On the face of it, this would seem to be a bearish combination since both Mars and Saturn are natural malefics and the 90 and 270 degree square aspects tend to be seen in a more bearish light in Western astrology.  But in order to better understand the possible market impact of this pairing, we need to move past deductive thinking and actually examine the evidence in the data.

To do this, I compiled a dataset of the past 59 Mars-Saturn squares from 1970 to 2025.  For the purposes of the study, both the 90 and 270 degree alignments were included.  Closing prices on the S&P 500 were recorded at 3-day intervals in order to trace price trends across time.  If the square alignment is indeed bearish in its effects, then we would expect stock prices to noticeably dip at some point during the alignment.  The first price in each series was recorded 15 days before the exact square (“-15d”) in order to simulate an approximate 10 degree orb for the Mars-Saturn square. Closing prices were then recorded at 12 days before (“-12d”), 9 days before (“-9d”) and so on.  The final price in the series was recorded 15 days after the square (“15d”).

If the deductive logic of conventional astrology is correct, we would hypothesize that stocks would tend to decline around the time of the exact square and then perhaps recover afterwards once the alignment separates.  The table of those closing prices for the S&P 500 is shown below.

Results

The summary statistics table below has some surprising results.  The table contains the average, median, and expected values across a variety of intervals.  The first column shows the price changes in the longest 30-day window which begins 15 days prior to the square and ends 15 days after (“-15d 15d”).  This window had an average return of 1.68% and a median return of 2.41%.  Both of these numbers were larger than the expected value of 0.67% which was the prorated return based on a 8.2% average annual return for the period 1970-2025.  Of particular importance is the fact that this interval produced a statistically significant result (p-value = 0.043) using the standard 95% threshold of significance (p<0.05).  The two halves of the interval (“-15d 0d”; “0d 15d”) both failed to achieve significance, however, although the 15-day period leading up to the square came close with p=0.061.

What is surprising here is that these results are bullish.  The Mars-Saturn square coincides with a largely bullish bias in the stock market during this 30-day window that straddles the square alignment.  The shorter 18-day and 12-day windows are also bullish.  The 18-day window (“-9d 9d”) also reached statistical significance (p=0.035) as did the 9-day period approaching the square (“-9d 0d”) (p=0.027).  Not only is the square alignment bullish in its effects, but the period leading up to the square appears to be more bullish than the period after, at least for these specific intervals of 6, 9 and 15 days. Interestingly, the shorter intervals immediately before and after the square alignment (“-3d 3d”) were more muted in their effects and did not reach statistical significance.

The overall bullish bias of the Mars-Saturn square can be seen in the cumulative chart below which tracks price effects across time during the 30-day period of study.  While the average and median lines track the expected line closely at first, they diverge fairly sharply by the time of the exact square (“0d”) and then continue higher thereafter.  While we hypothesized a more bullish effect after the square alignment, this data suggests the bullish effects actually start to occur before the exact square.

90 vs 270 degrees: is one square more bullish than another?

While these bullish results were surprising, I was naturally curious to see if one square was better or worse than the other.  Was it possible that the Vedic forward square of 270 degrees produced different outcomes than the 90 degree alignment?  To test this idea, I compiled a subset of 29 Mars-Saturn squares in which Mars was 270 degrees away from Saturn.  Assessing this 3rd quarter square aspect was especially useful since the upcoming Mars-Saturn would be of the 270 degree variety.

The table below shows the summary statistics for this 270-degree subset of squares.  While the bullish bias is still evident as both the averages and medians are generally greater than the expected values, the bullish effect is clearly less.  Also, we should note that no interval reached statistical significance (p<0.05).  The bullish effect of the 270 degree square is also apparent in the cumulative chart.  While still bullish, the average and median lines do not rise as high and as quickly as they do with the undifferentiated larger sample of Mars-Saturn squares.

Conclusion

Even with the more modest bullish bias of the 270 degree square, the data presented here suggest the Mars-Saturn square is bullish both before and after the exact alignment. This bullish pairing contradicts the generally bearish deductive assumption of most financial astrologers regarding Mars and Saturn.  Interestingly, these bullish results echo similarly surprising bullish results that were discovered in our previous study of Mars-Saturn oppositions.  Even if Mars and Saturn are seen as natural malefics in astrology, it is clear that their alignments are actually positive for the stock market.

Implications for this week

While these results are impressive, it is not immediately clear how they will influence this week’s market action.  With the Mars-Saturn square not exact until next Monday, Dec 8, we will still very much be in the lead-up to the alignment.  While this may have a bullish bias, the study of the 270 degree alignment showed less bullish effects, especially in the days before the exact square alignment.  Both the average and medians were above the expected line, but not by much.  Therefore, we should perhaps moderate any bullish expectations this week.

However, bulls can still point to the probable bullish influence of the aftermath of the Mercury-Venus conjunction (exact Nov 24) as well as the bullish aftermath of the Jupiter-Saturn trine (exact Nov 17).  None of these three alignments should be seen as a reliable basis for a bullish trading strategy, but taken together they are clearly more supportive for the bullish perspective than the bearish one.  If nothing else, they suggest that whatever declines we may see this week, stocks are likely to recover fairly quickly as dips will get bought.

The late week could be more volatile than the early week as Mercury aligns with Mars on Thursday and the Moon forms a tense T-square with Mars and Saturn on Friday. Friday looks more more difficult in that respect.

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Disclaimer: Not investment advice.  For educational purposes only.