Weekly column: Venus-Saturn square and new moon in Scorpio align with market moves

Review

Political bias will also distort the [economic] data—Republicans think they are living in Weimar Germany, Democrats think inflation is under control.

— Dr. Paul Donovan, “A Lesson in Why Data Are Not Dependable,” UBS Morning Comment, October 25, 2024.

After reaching significant new yearly and all-time highs the prior week, many global stock indices fell last week.

In Asia and the Pacific Rim, there were no cases of making new multi-week highs last week. In fact, most were down. An example was India’s Nifty Index, which completed its all-time high four weeks ago on September 27. Since that time, it has been in decline, with its lowest mark occurring on Friday at its lowest level 11 weeks.

In Europe, most indices completed their recent highs between October 17-21. Then, they spent most of last week in a rather quiet decline. Perhaps investors there are waiting for the U.S. election to see if Trump wins and will live up to his rhetoric of placing a 10-20% tariff on everybody. They won’t like that.

In the U.S., it was a mixed bag. The NASDAQ cash market finally made a new all-time high intraday on Friday, but neither the S&P nor the DJIA could take out their all-time highs from the prior week. Thus, a case of intermarket bearish divergence persists as we head into the November 5 election. In the past, stock indices have made major or primary cycle lows going into or shortly after (i.e., within two weeks or November 18 this year) those elections in recent cases.

In other markets, Gold soared to yet another new all-time high of 2772.60 on October 23. Silver also made a new multi-year high of 3507 on October 22-23. The pullback in both has been modest into the end of the week, so there is no sign yet that the highs are in. In fact, there may not be an astrological signature of a major trend reversal before Mars and Neptune change direction on December 6-7. Traders may want to note that we will plan our next options webinar with Derek Panaia that weekend in anticipation of that important CRD zone. Crude Oil had a modest rally last week following a low on October 18. Bitcoin followed the lead of stock indices, topping out at 68,487 on October 21, then modestly pulling back to the 65,000 area support zone late in the week. With next week’s New Moon in Scorpio, this could be an important reversal week for Bitcoin.

Short-term geocosmics and longer-term thoughts

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner on Friday warned that if the U.S. kicked off a trade war with the European Union, there could be retaliation. “Trade controversy never sees winners, only losers,” Lindner told CNBC’s Karen Tso on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C… Trump has floated the idea that, if he were elected, blanket tariffs of 10% to 20% could be imposed on almost all imports, no matter where they came from.

—Sophie Kiderlin, “German Finance Minister Warns of Retaliation if U.S. Kicks Off Trade War,” www.cnbc.com, October 25, 2024.

Whatever the outcome of the election, at least half the country will feel crushed. Voters feel they are faced with a bad choice, and many millions will vote against, not for. Everyone is afraid the other side will destroy the country. If it turns out as close as the polls say, we fear a harrowing postelection time marked by accusations and aggression, with nothing clear and everything bitter…. Neither of these parties is worthy of us; both this year failed us.

—Peggy Noonan, “The U.S. Can Take a Tough Election,” Wall Street Journal, October 26, 2024.

One of our favorite aspects to trade is coming up on Monday when Venus will form a 90° square to Saturn. Our rule for this is to buy any market making a corrective decline into this period, +/- 2 trading days. The DJIA appears to be doing that, as do several other global stock indices. As far as financial market sectors ruled by Venus, we would also be looking at Copper and Soybeans, which could also form at least trading cycle lows here.

Next week, the sky will exhibit a New Moon in Scorpio on Friday, November 1. Scorpio rules debt and borrowing, with a tendency to overleverage and run into cash shortages. This particular New Moon may be important because the two planets that co-rule Scorpio—Mars and Pluto—will be in opposition on November 3, just two days before the U.S. election. In terms of financial markets, this might correspond to downside pressure in Bitcoin and Ethereum. In terms of politics, this same combination may incite anger and even violence. Security will need to be tighter than usual at polling centers, but also in regard to cyber attacks as Pluto is on the cusp of Capricorn and Aquarius (Aquarius rules computers; Pluto and Scorpio can represent the attempt to penetrate security).

The election itself has recently seen a major surge of support for former President Donald Trump. It appears that the transit of stationary Jupiter close to his natal Sun is “trumping” Jupiter near Kamala Harris’ natal Ascendant. It may also be a cosmic issue of transiting Pluto square Vice-President Harris’ natal Sun/Mercury midpoint, given that Mercury is her ruling planet and posited in early Scorpio, the sign of Pluto’s rulership. Pluto can turn people against you if you don’t surrender to their demands for transparency. It seems that the public wants her to “reveal” (Pluto, Scorpio) more information (Mercury) about her policies and plans, as if she has some kind of a hidden agenda (Pluto, Scorpio) where she says one thing but really means something else. Or, she avoids answering questions directly before trying to re-direct her answer to focus on Mr. Trump’s faults. Will that work? It hasn’t so far. However, the intensity of her attack mode is relatively recent compared to his on her, and Trump’s has worked to his advantage over the last three weeks. As Peggy Noonan states in her Wall Street column this week: “Voters feel they are faced with a bad choice, and many millions will vote against, not for.”

 From the astrological viewpoint, we noted in our recent presentation in Tucson two weeks ago that in every case since 1886, the party in office during a 20-year Jupiter/Saturn waxing square was re-elected (7 consecutive cases). This would favor Ms. Harris. Also, Ian Salisbury, in a recent article with Barron’s Magazine, pointed out that ”If the DJIA is up over the 11 weeks leading into an election, the incumbent party usually wins (22 of 24 cases, going back to 1928).” This also favors Harris as long as the DJIA remains above 39,765 on Election Day.

However, there has been only one case in history where a former President lost an election and then came back the next election cycle to win. That was Grover Cleveland, who won the election of 1884, lost in 1888, then came back to win again in 1892. The major transit suggesting that comeback was Jupiter in opposition to Uranus, as an aspect associated with change or an upset. In 2024, Jupiter formed a conjunction with Uranus, which was very similar to the opposition in terms of its relationship to comebacks and upsets. I also pointed out recently that whoever held the lead most of the time between September 15 and October 15 often lost the election, especially in the 21st century. Harris was in the lead in most of the polls during this time. Now, she’s falling back in the past two weeks. Thus, these two studies favor a Trump victory. This is why it is close and may come right down to the wire, even though both parties were recently (and may still be) predicting a landslide. It may also come down to another split between the popular vote and the Electoral College. This, too, would be the nature of a year in which a major Uranus transit was highlighted.

An important question to ask is: which gender will be most energized to actually vote? Harris has a large lead over Trump with women, as signified by transiting Uranus in trine aspect to the U.S. natal Moon (women) in the July 2, 1776 chart of the nation. Trump has a wide lead with men over Harris, perhaps related to his natal Sun conjunct Mars (men) in the U.S. chart. Which gender will turn out the greatest number of voters? And will the difference between the two be enough to carry one side to victory over the other? On election day itself, the Moon will change signs from Sagittarius (optimism and confidence) to Capricorn (doubts and worries). It may start out one way and end up another.