It seems that many books on financial astrologyFinancial astrology is the use of astrology to analze and forecast the financial markets. Here financial astrology is understood primarily as an empirical-statistical discipline. The probably first financial astrologer in history was Thales of Miletus who is viewed as the father of science and philosophy (together with Aristotle). With the aid of astrology Thales foresaw an excellent olive harvest, so he hired all olive presses that he lent out with a huge profit, which made him a rich man. have been written by authors who neither have done much empirical research nor have traded their theories - which explains the lack of predictive power of the standard theories in the field. To give one expample: one of the most popular views is that (hard) mundane aspects (connections) of Saturn are bearish and (soft) mundane aspects of Jupiter are bullish.

In short, mundane means that when you are interested in the next month you look at the planetary positions next month. The second approach is the one you know from the interpretation of natal charts for human beings; in financial astrologyFinancial astrology is the use of astrology to analze and forecast the financial markets. Here financial astrology is understood primarily as an empirical-statistical discipline. The probably first financial astrologer in history was Thales of Miletus who is viewed as the father of science and philosophy (together with Aristotle). With the aid of astrology Thales foresaw an excellent olive harvest, so he hired all olive presses that he lent out with a huge profit, which made him a rich man. you take the day a stock was first traded (="birth") to calculate the first-trade horoscope (list).

Let's apply this Jupiter/ Saturn hypothesis to current examples to validate or reject it:

  • From October 9-16, 2002 only 2 important mundane aspects were present (apart from the moonThe moon has a major impact on the markets, the full moon is more important than the new moon. which is only relevant for day-traders): Mars square Saturn and Mercury square Saturn, both bearish according to the standard theory.
    result: the Dow Jones rallied an astonishing 14% which was the sharpest bear market rally since the 1930ies.
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  • July 8-23, 2002 had 3 major mundane angles: sun conjunct Jupiter, Mercury conjunct Jupiter, sun conjunct Mercury - very bullish as one would conclude.
    result: The Dow plummeted by 20% in these two weeks which is quite extra-ordinary.
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  • Crash October 19, 1987: within a few days there was only one aspect between the slow planets, namely Jupiter trine Uranus on October 24. This combination occurs 2 times in 12 years and is said to be the most bullish aspect of all...

You will detect the same contradictions when you try to get the trend direction from the Bradley siderograph. The list could be extended because my empirical investigations based on several decades of data haven't been very fruitful to say the least (there are exceptions, however).

What's really working: First, you have to distinguish between the two approaches mentioned above. I have to add that I really don't know why the difference between munane and first-trade horoscopes is so significant.

  • The standard theories about mundane constellations are mostly wrong, especially when referring to their bullish or bearish bias. In contrast, the true strength of the mundane approach is to identify turning points, the polarity (high/low) has to be determined with the aid of other instruments.
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  • By and large, the traditional techniques applied to natal and first-trade horoscopes do work.

    Example Cisco: in May I published an article saying that the first-trade horoscope of Cisco (based on the first day of the NASDAQ: CSCO listing on February 16, 1990) was quite bullish in the intermediate-termintermediate term means a time horizon of 1-3 months. time frame and it should be an outperformer within the tech sector in the next months. The chart below demonstrates the relative strength of CSCO compared to the Nasdaq 100 index from May until August:

 

 Technologieindex

Another mundane astrology example: Venus in opposition to Jupiter has a tendency to produce significant rallies in the week after (!) the exact aspect (dotted vertical line). Again we have to be very careful because inversions (high/ low) do happen, e.g., the last occurence was on January 3, 2002 just one day before the major high on January 4 (chart created with the Market Trader): 

 

Chart