Rahu-Mercury play may cause spike in volatility

Following negative global cues and worries over tightening credit, stocks suffered a decline last week.  The Nifty closed at 4882, down 3% for the week while the Sensex finished at 16357.

This bearish result was largely in keeping with expectations as the pervasive Mars influence through the week nullified the effects of any passing positive aspects. Most of the damage was inflicted on Wednesday just as Venus, the planet of money, was opposite Mars, the planet of destruction.

Monday started the week fairly benignly as the exalted Moon was sufficient to counteract the Mercury-Mars pairing. And Thursday did end up positive as I thought it might, as the Moon resonated with both Mercury and Venus and pushed up prices into the close. However, given the fairly close affliction of the Sun by Mars,
Friday’s mildly positive gain was somewhat surprising.

It seems that Indian markets largely escaped most of the trouble as US markets were hit with the full force of this aspect later in the day. Overall, the negative effect of this series of Mars aspects came through more or less on schedule and extended the correction for another week. Consequently, our hypothesis of a significant market top on the solar eclipse of January 15 is still very much in play. Thus far, no planetary alignment has had sufficient strength to upset this important celestial signature.

This week looks more mixed as Mars moves out of focus and Rahu takes a greater role. The early week will be dominated by Mercury approaching its conjunction with unpredictable Rahu.

Rahu is a dark and mysterious planet that is capable of producing both sudden gains and sudden losses and its combination with Mercury here suggests that volatility may be higher than normal. A potential source of optimism may come from the minor aspect from Jupiter to Saturn and Pluto which is exact later in the week.

So there may be a tendency for sentiment to generally improve as the week progresses with Thursday and particularly Friday looking fairly positive. The early-week period is more of a question mark with losses perhaps more likely. Monday and Tuesday will also see the Moon approaching pessimistic Saturn so that may provide an extra dimension of caution and fear.

Wednesday will feature the exact conjunction of Mercury and Rahu so that could well represent a meaningful turning point to the week as uncertainty and trepidation gradually give way to more risk-taking. 

While some kind of rebound seems likely this week, the planets still seem less than favourable at least until the Mars-Saturn aspect on February 15. And even if the planets look somewhat more positive towards the end of February, it seems likely that stocks have entered a period of an extended correction.

Crude oil continued its recent weakness as it closed below $73. I had expected a little more pullback later in the week but the outcome was not too surprising.   We can look for some kind of recovery later this week as Jupiter will form a minor aspect with Saturn. Gold slipped another 1% last week closing at $1081 on the continuous contract. It seems likely to lose more ground this week as the Sun remains in tense aspect with Mars.

The writer is a neo-Vedic astrologer specialising in predictive astrology. He runs the website