Mumbai’s Magnificent Monday
Stocks in Mumbai soared a record 17% in Monday’s session as investors poured into equities on the heels of the stunning victory by the pro-market Congress Party in the election. The Nifty surpassed 4300 while the Sensex jumped above 14,000. While I have been generally bullish on Indian stocks for the spring period, I completely missed this explosive rally both in terms of its exact timing and its unprecedented scope. It is a humbling experience to be confronted with one’s errors is such a stark fashion. Days such as these are difficult reminders of the limits of my own knowledge as a financial astrologer.
The fact that I had been forecasting a brief but significant correction here makes this doubly awkward. Nevertheless, there were some clues that we might see some extra strength in this period. For example, the National Stock Exchange of India chart (NSE) shows a very positive pattern involving the secondary progressed and transit charts. Progressed charts are a staple in Western astrology and they form part of my toolkit as an integrative neo-Vedic astrologer. Here we can see that progressed Sun is closely conjunct progressed Jupiter at 1 Scorpio. This is perhaps one of the most positive contacts imaginable but since progressions are quite slow moving (the Sun moves just one degree per year), it can be difficult to know when the positive energy will be manifest. When I looked at this pattern, I assumed that it represented the current bull phase which I had forecast to extend into the summer, perhaps into July or August.
But look at the transits to those progressed positions. Jupiter (1 Aquarius), Uranus (1 Pisces), Neptune/Chiron (2 Aquarius) all form harmonically significant aspects to that progressed Sun-Jupiter conjunction. There is some debate among astrologers whether transits to progressed planets have the same power as transits to natal positions. I think this chart is makes a good case that they are significant since they highlight the progression. My mistake was that I didn’t place enough importance on them and focused too much on the trees instead of the forest. The Sun-Mercury transit conjunction today at 3 Taurus was the immediate trigger for these other contacts between slow moving planets and the progressions. While it might possibly have triggered a similar rise when either one transited 1 Taurus, thus setting up a stronger resonance with all the other planets at 1 degree, the conjunction at 3 Taurus combined their energies and was still within range.
But if these measurements were clearly discernible, why did I fail to predict that such a huge move was possible? Well, I don’t think any amount of analysis could have helped me predict a one-day 17% gain. Magnitude is difficult to predict with astrology, and it rarely goes beyond, small-medium-large in terms of the size of market moves, or ‘life moves’ for that matter. But the main complicating factor was that Jupiter (2 Aquarius) is slowing down to make its retrograde station on June 16 at 3 Aquarius. It will therefore be within range at 2 or 3 degrees of sidereal Aquarius for two months until mid-July. Given the placement of the progressed Sun-Jupiter conjunction would not move more than a few arc minutes over that time, it would not be unreasonable to expect that a big move up was possible at any time that Jupiter (and Neptune and Chiron and Uranus) were within a degree or so of their current position. My original thinking was that much of the gain that was implicit in this configuration would not be expressed until later in June and July. As it turned out, the Sun-Mercury conjunction was trigger enough to release a lot of this bullish energy in May. There will likely be more upside later on, but it will probably be smaller than the move we’ve seen here.
There were also clues of the meteoric rise in the Indian independence chart. The second house in national horoscopes represent income and money and this chart has Uranus placed there at 2 degrees of sidereal Gemini. Uranus is a planet of sudden or explosive energy and when placed in the second house is can symbolize many ups and downs in the economy. Since the stock market is associated with trading and volatile movements, Uranus in the second house can be seen as representing the stock market also. As an added source of energy, we can see that Uranus is closely conjunct the Part of Fortune (or Punya Saham), a highly sensitive point in the horoscope that often responds to transit hits.
The current conjunction between Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune at 1-3 Aquarius formed a very close favourable trine aspect with this Uranus and thus created a situation where sudden (Uranus) gains (Jupiter) were more likely. As before, the transiting Sun-Mercury conjunction at 3 Taurus served as a trigger in this chart due to its two degree conjunction with the natal Rahu and its close proximity to the ascendant (7 Taurus). While I did not predict such an outcome from looking at this chart, the Jupiter to Uranus was nonetheless indicative of economic strength and increased the probability of stock market gains.
