Comment

Stocks ended the year on a slightly positive note as investors continued to focus on encouraging signs of growth going into 2010.

The Sensex closed Thursday’s session at its highs for 2009 at 17464 while the Nifty finished at 5201. Despite confronting a variety of difficult short-term aspects, the bulls did not succumb and surprisingly retained control for yet another week. There was precious little upward movement ahead of the year end, although the market did not fall on Tuesday’s Venus-Pluto conjunction. This was testament to the resiliency of Indian markets which have outperformed most other global markets and gained a stunning 80% on the year. Thursday’s modestly positive result was also unexpected as the Moon’s transit into Gemini ought to have generated more pessimism given the Saturn aspect.

As it turned out, pessimism only manifested in US markets later on in the day. Even with the positive bias here, the market seems fairly cautious as it has yet to significantly break above resistance levels. Overall, the medium-term influences appear to be holding in a rough balance as the bearish Mars and Mercury retrograde cycles are being offset by the lasting effects of the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction.

The week may see an increase in volatility on the triple conjunction of Sun, Mercury and Venus in Sagittarius.Actually, there are two separate conjunctions here but they occur in rapid succession and so their effects may be blended. The Sun first conjoins Mercury on Tuesday and this is more likely to cause problems as the fiery Sun may upset Mercury’s commercial instincts and thereby interfere with rational trading patterns. This is more likely to manifest earlier in the week, most likely on Monday or Tuesday. However, Mercury will conjoin benefic Venus late Tuesday so that offers the possibility of a quick rebound.

Wednesday will feature a Moon-Saturn conjunction during the trading session, which may increase pessimism. Thursday and Friday are harder to call given a mix of influences, both positive and negative.

On the positive side, Venus approaches its conjunction with the Sun and this may bear fruit on Friday given the helpful aspect from the Moon at the open.

However, Mars will nonetheless form a potentially tense aspect with both of these planets late in the week, so that will cast a shadow over any optimism and if nothing else, could limit any late week gains we see here. Overall, the shorter-term planetary influences seem to tilt towards the bears this week.

It seems unlikely that the long rally of 2009 can extend into 2010, at least at the outset. The presence of both Mercury and Mars retrograde cycles in January would tend to reduce the likelihood for significant gains in equities in the near term.

Crude oil continued its recent rally last week closing above $79 for a solid gain on the final week of 2009. Its price has more than doubled throughout the course of the year as the initial pessimism of the recession has faded. This week’s Sun-Mercury conjunction looks likely to encourage sellers this week so declines may be more common than gains.

The Venus-Pluto conjunction delivered the bearish goods as gold extended its losing streak last week closing at $1,096. Gold rose almost 25% in 2009 as investors sought stability in the face of inflation fears from the massive stimulus packages launched by various governments throughout the world. Gold could be vulnerable to more losses in the early week on the Sun-Mercury conjunction but overall, the picture may be improving for gold in the near term.

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