Planets flashing cautionary signals for global markets

Stocks in Mumbai were largely flat last week as negative global cues weighed on growth prospects in Asia. The Sensex remained within 2% of its yearly high, closing at 17574 while the Nifty finished at 5269.

Given the offsetting planets in play, I had expected both positive and negative trends last week and we were not far off the mark. The anticipated early week bullishness on the Sun’s aspect to Uranus and Jupiter arrived on Monday but did not last long. The gain was substantial but the rest of week saw the bears gradually chip away at it until all the gains disappeared.

This late-week caution also manifested more or less on cue as Mercury entered Gemini and came under the aspect of Saturn.  Not surprisingly perhaps, Thursday was the most negative day of the week and that correlated with the closest angle between Mercury, representing trading and commerce and Saturn, symbolising caution and pessimism.

Despite the relative strength of Indian equities, the planets continue to flash cautionary signals for all global markets. The restrictive energy of Saturn is preparing for another significant move in the near future as it resumes the approach for its final opposition aspect with the emancipatory energy of Uranus.

The meanings of these two distant planets stand in stark contradiction to one another as their energies generally do not mix well. This often tends to increased tension that can worsen market sentiment.

Actually, this combination may be a two-stage affair since Uranus will first end its forward motion on July 6 and then begin to move backwards in the sky.

This will be the prelude to the exact opposition on July 26. The time around, both dates are therefore potentially disruptive. This week could be quite active for both bulls and bears as there is a higher than normal number of close planetary aspects.

On Monday, the Sun will conjoin Mercury in the sign of Gemini. While this tends to be a bullish pairing, we should note that aggressive Mars will come under the disruptive influence of Rahu around the same time.

At minimum, that will likely increase trading volumes and exaggerate price swings in both directions.  But since Mars-Rahu can be bearish, we may see gains limited or quickly nullified. Later in the week, Ketu becomes the focus of attention as we will see fast moving conjunctions by both Mercury (on Wednesday) and the Sun (on Friday/Saturday).

As a planet of change and unboundedness, Ketu is notoriously hard to predict although it does incline towards bearishness. Ketu has a quality of breaking with the consensus or interrupting the trend so important reversals are more likely this week.

Crude oil finished higher near $79 last week on fears of possible supply problems during the US hurricane season. I thought we would see some upside on the Sun-Jupiter aspect although I mistakenly targeted the early week for the bulk of the gains. This week does not offer any clear signals for crude, as water-sign aspects are not prominent. 

Nonetheless, the strong Ketu and Gemini emphasis may not be helpful for the sentiment.

Gold was mostly unchanged last week as it closed near its recent record high just under $1260. I thought we might see still higher prices on the Sun-Jupiter aspect but early week trading was more actually bearish, only picking up later on.

Since the Sun is one of the main drivers for gold, its conjunction with Mercury this week is likely to push up prices further, at least in the early going.
 
The writer is a neo-Vedic astrologer specialising in predictive astrology. He runs the website www.modernvedicastrology.com