Celestial trio may be silver lining in listless week

Stocks edged higher last week as investors started the first quarter on a winning note.  The Sensex gained less than 1%, closing at 17486, while the Nifty ended the week at 5322. While I thought we might have seen a little more downward bias, given the approaching Mars-Neptune aspect, this outcome was not hugely unexpected.

I noted that there was some positive energy available through Monday’s Sun-Jupiter aspect and that this could postpone the bearishness. Indeed, Monday was higher, but the bulls maintained control into Tuesday. Wednesday’s loss correlated fairly closely with the Moon’s conjunction of bearish Mars ahead of the 4-day holiday weekend.

Global markets were on the defensive last week as the Fed revealed that it had no further plans for quantitative easing. Without the Fed’s liquidity largesse propping up stocks, investors suddenly had to consider the nature of the economic fundamentals for a change.

With the recovery still very much in first gear for many developed economies, the market may have an increasingly difficult task justifying current prices. The withdrawal of the Fed’s punch bowl is very much in keeping with the notion that Jupiter’s energy is on the wane following its important multi-planet alignment in mid-March.

This may be the reason why there is less froth in the market and less willingness to keep the bubble inflated.  At the same time, no one seems to know if the global economy is strong enough to stand on its own feet without central bank intervention.  Investors may have become addicted to these injections of liquidity which have negated notions of risk since 2009.

This week will see Mars move a little closer to its opposition aspect with Neptune. This could depress sentiment generally as aggressive impulses (Mars) are met with confusion or weakness (Neptune). 

However, there is a potent-looking Moon-Venus-Ketu pattern in the early part of the week that could suddenly bring in buyers. This is perhaps more likely on Tuesday, although the first half of the week may tilt bullishness.

The latter half of the week looks somewhat less promising as Mars ends its retrograde cycle on Saturday.
In the wake of the Fed’s sudden change of heart, crude oil fell out of favour although it rebounded at the end of the week to finish unchanged around $103 for WTI. 

This outcome was roughly according to expectations as I thought the early part of the week might be bullish (Monday was higher), but that prices would weaken by the end. We could see some upside in the early week as the Moon transits Scorpio and aspects Venus.  The late week also has the potential for gains although perhaps less so.

Gold also tumbled on the Fed’s stricter monetary stance as it closed near $1,630. This bearish outcome was not surprising, given the approaching conjunction of Venus to Ketu this week. I noted that we could see some early week gains and indeed, Monday was slightly higher ahead of the release of the Fed minutes.

We could see some early week strength around the Moon-Venus aspect, but that probably won’t be enough to reverse the negative sentiment around gold. The late week looks more bearish as the Sun moves to oppose Saturn.

The writer is a neo-Vedic astrologer specialising in predictive astrology.