Sell in May and come back on St. Leger’s day?
I am not a stock broker and I am not qualified to give financial advice. The following article is for entertainment purposes only. I mean it. Astrologers often claim that they can predict stock market movements, and if they really could they’d be keeping their mouths shut and raking in the money. Nonetheless, it is possible that there’s a correlation between planetary movements and the ebb and flow of the stock market, and in this article I want to have a quick look at the likelihood of a stock market crash in the early summer.
The concept of a stock market crash is of course rather melodramatic, and it’s quite rare for the market to suddenly collapse. We think of the great Wall Street crash on October 29 1929, and more recently the October 19 1987 crash, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over twenty percent in one day. Yet more recent stock market declines have been more gradual. Rarely did a single day stand out, instead it was an incremental decline, over a period of months.
As far as 2010 is concerned, a lot of people are getting nervous because in just over a week it’s going to be May, and the beginning of May is often seen as being a turning point, a time when stock markets begin a long fall, which continues until September – when in England the St. Leger Stakes horse race takes place.
A few astrologers are already predicting that the stock market will soon start falling. Not only have you got the ‘Sell in May’ effect, but you’ve also got some serious planetary alignments.
On April 26 and 27 Saturn is making an 180-degree opposition aspect to Uranus. This will create a great deal of tension, and perhaps unexpected events will have an influence on the stock market.
Most importantly, Jupiter and Saturn are moving towards an opposition, and this becomes exact towards the end of May. Historically the Jupiter-Saturn opposition has often coincided with stock market despair. The aspect last happened in 1989 and 1990, when the world experienced a short, sharp recession. It happened twenty years before that, at the very beginning of the 1970s, which was again an unhappy time for the world’s economy. And most importantly, the Great Depression of the 1930s started under the influence of this opposition.
However I don’t believe that the stock market will retreat in the early Summer, and my reasoning is very simple.
Jupiter is the planet of optimism, of believing that things are going to get better. Saturn is the reverse – pessimistic, and focusing on the down-side.
These two planets are at war with each other, because of the opposition, and in stock market jargon, the bulls and bears are fighting it out.
Yet in the short-term, Jupiter is likely to win. I say this because until early June Jupiter is in Pisces, the sign of its rulership. This makes Jupiter strong, particularly when compared with Saturn, which is currently going backward, in an area of the Zodiac in which it has no dignity.
It’s only in late July that the relative strengths of Jupiter and Saturn will greatly shift, and even then I doubt that there will be any immediate impact on the stock market.
However I am not saying that the Summer will be quiet. The Saturn-Uranus opposition will create a lot of political tension, but I suspect that for one reason or another the markets will largely discount it.
Of course I might be wrong, and you should take everything I’ve just written with a pinch of salt.
Copyright © 2010 Archie Dunlop
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I Really Like Your Posts Very Interesting !!!
I THink The 2nd opposition in August is going to have a complicated effect to the Markets !!!
Stock market is saying they are going out of the Crisis but the road is not paved yet neither plans are taking care of all factors !!!
Pluto in Capricorn aquare Uranus in Aries has a lot more to say i Think I am not an Astrologer but i like Astrology !!!
Best Regards Archie Dunlop and ThankYou for Your Great Posts !!!
You have done an excellent study of the subject : Astrology and markets , I agree with your views . As I am involved full time as a broker in the markets, I think Jupiter has an edge at the moment and optimism will overcome the mood created by Saturn.
Bravo, Please keep posting such excellent articles on astrology
My bet is on June 11, 2012. Some similarities between Oct. 29, 1929 and June 11, 2012:
On June 11, 2012 Pluto (R), Uranus and Mercury are in an almost exact T-square, with Uranus incidentally about one degree conjunct the Mars – Pluto midpoint of the natal U.S. chart. [On Oct. 29, 1929 Pluto (R) was in a nearly exact square to Mercury.] So, although on June 11, Pluto (R) will be in opposition to Mercury, instead of square to it (as it was on Oct. 29, 1929), I believe that the overall configuration is worse because of the presence of the T-square that now also involves Uranus.
On both Oct. 29, 1929 and June 11, 2012 Uranus is at 8 degrees Aries.
On June 11, 2012 Mars is less than two degrees square the Sun. On Oct. 29, 1929 Mars was exactly inconjunct Jupiter.
In the earlier part of June 11, 2012, Jupiter is at the anaretic degree of Taurus, less than one degree away from 00 degrees 20 minutes Gemini, which is the position of the annular solar eclipse that will have occurred on May 20, 2012. So, again, the affairs of Gemini (such as commerce) may be hugely impacted (? triggering the Mercury-Pluto-Uranus T-square). [See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_May_20,_2012 where mention is made that "the annular phase will be visible from the Chinese coast, the south of Japan, and the western part of the United States and Canada. Tokyo will be on the central path....It will be the first central eclipse of the 21st century in the continental USA...]
So, I think June 11, 2012 may be a good candidate for a repeat of the events surrounding the Wall Street crash of Oct. 1929.
(And, as an aside, might there be some natural disaster related to the May 20, 2012 solar eclipse that could impact Japan or the west coast of the U.S.? Note how Saturn is inconjunct the Mercury-Jupiter midpoint/conjunction in Taurus on that day.)