Comment

Stocks in Mumbai were largely unchanged last week as caution became the watchword ahead of the central bank’s policy review on January 29.

Despite intraday highs again touching 5300, Nifty closed Friday at 5252 while Sensex finished at 17554.

I had been leaning towards a bullish outcome, albeit contingent on whether or not the early week Sun-Venus-Rahu conjunction would generate some gains. As it happened, the rally stalled on Monday and suffered a small pullback on Tuesday as the effects of Saturn’s retrograde station may have arrived a day early. Modest gains on Wednesday and Thursday corresponded with the double ingress of Sun and Venus into Capricorn.

Overall, the lacklustre performance last week reinforces the notion the planets are generating offsetting energies. The inability of the bulls to take stocks significantly higher on clearly positive aspects could be a sign of weakness going forward.

This week looks mixed as the early-week optimism of Jupiter may be countered by the growing influence of Mars later on. Monday features an alignment of the Moon, Venus and Jupiter which could be enough to move prices higher. Moon will conjoin Jupiter at midday so some afternoon selling is more likely.

Tuesday and Wednesday will see Sun form a minor aspect with Jupiter so those appear to offer additional opportunities for the market to move higher.

While these early-week planets look favourable, we should be careful about attributing too much bullishness to them since the aspects are only minor and may not be able to bring out the fully-fledged optimism of Jupiter.

Once Sun completes its aspect with Jupiter in midweek, profit-taking may be more likely.Thursday looks fairly negative in this respect as the Moon in Pisces will oppose Saturn. Friday lacks any obvious planetary aspect although with Mercury now entering Purvashada, it seems unlikely the market can rise and it could well close in the red. Despite the prospect for gains on the early-week aspects, it is hard to see stocks being higher this week.

It is a widely believed that the market will be range-bound over the next few weeks ahead of getting some clearer direction from the central bank policy meeting. The planets would generally confirm this view, although with the prospect of several difficult Mars aspects next week, one would still be inclined to be bearish in the short term.

Crude oil slipped back to $78 last week as its recent rally ended amidst oversupply concerns. This week looks mixed as some early-week gains may be nullified by declines later in the week.
In a choppy week, gold mostly held its own as it closed at $1,131. This week could begin positively as both Sun and Venus will reflect Jupiter’s optimism, but watch for gold to lose its shine as the week progresses.

The writer is a neo-Vedic astrologer specialising in predictive astrology. He runs the website www.modernvedicastrology.com