Stock Market Thrill Ride

A lot of boomers have a significant amount of money in the stock market, thanks partly to the general societal push away from defined-benefit pension plans and toward 401Ks and similar retirement accounts that offer the potential of greater financial rewards along with greater risk. I know I have a lot of money in the stock market; so do my parents; so does my boyfriend, and others in my circle do too. Lately, global stock markets have been on a roller coaster ride, and my boyfriend periodically calls me up and says things like "my retirement account got killed today." Although not as dramatic as the dot.com crash of several years ago, the recent market upheavals due to problems with mortgage lending give us all a chance (if we choose to take it) to assess our personal tolerances for financial risk.

I don't devote a lot of time to studying the astrology of the stock market, but here's my take on things. First, I look at Saturn to get an overall feel for the financial mood in the sky. Saturn's been in Leo for a little over two years, a fixed sign. It's been periodically finding itself in opposition to Neptune in Aquarius, another fixed sign. Last year, it also found itself squaring Jupiter by sign (Jupiter was in Scorpio). Add it all up, and what you get is a lot of stuck, fixed sign action in 2006, somewhat but not completely eased through much of 2007. To me, this adds up to the stock market behaving in a generally stagnant fashion, trading within a fairly narrow range much of time. With Jupiter in Sagittarius (an optimistic sign) in 2007, I expected a not very volatile, but somewhat optimistic market for much of this year. A bull market in general, but not a thrilling one. I expected that as Saturn moved toward Virgo, however, that things would change.

In a few days, Saturn moves into Virgo, a mutable reactive sign. This move shifts the emphasis in the sky toward a much more volatile energy. Saturn, Jupiter, Pluto, and Uranus will all be in mutable signs for awhile. At the end of the year, Jupiter will move into conservative Capricorn, and Pluto will follow. Therefore, I would expect volatility for several months, followed by somewhat greater stability in 2008, with adjustments as Pluto retrogrades back into Sagittarius and then moves into Capricorn again.

I would expect the market to be less optimistic and large institutional investors to be considerably more cautious. This is as it should be, since it was a lack of lending caution and oversight that precipitated the current crisis. Capricorn is a far more prudent sign than Sagittarius. My guess is that the market will move off its peak and engage in something of retrenchment. Investors like me, who do not have unlimited tolerance for risk or complexity, will probably find the mood more reassuring in 2008 than in the later months of 2007.

I would also guess that over the long haul (beyond 2008), there will be increasing pressure against globalization, free trade, and the flow of global capital and more efforts by nations to protect their economic interests by circling the wagons somewhat. I am already hearing increasing murmurs by political candidates and others that maybe globalization isn't the unadulterated economic good it was touted to be. Moves toward protectionism, although understandable, will probably not be good for the world economy, and when Uranus squares Pluto in 2012 we'll probably see, at the very least, the beginnings of a rather long bear market.

Historically, Uranus/Pluto contacts haven't been particularly kind to the stock market, and the Uranus/Pluto conjunctions of the 1960s coincided with a bear market that lasted for decades. The Uranus/Pluto square before that coincided with the absolute low of the stock market during the Great Depression of the 1930s. By 2009, Saturn in Virgo will be in opposition to Uranus in Pisces, and we'll probably see volatility on a greater scale than we're seeing now. Oil prices or supplies may be implicated, and food safety may be as well. This will probably be a time to watch carefully and make very considered decisions about risk, reward, and whether or not it is a good idea to have the bulk of your retirement funds in equities.

Pluto has been in an economically optimistic sign for such a long time (since 1995) that investors may not remember that optimism is not always the dominant mood on Wall Street. Pluto's transit through Sagittarius has coincided with the rise of the Internet as an economic force, and investors have gotten used to a digital economy. Enormous changes have taken place in how money is handled on an institutional level since 1995, and most of us regular old baby boomers have no understanding of how capital markets have changed, even as we have been relentlessly and ruthlessly encouraged to trade in the security of a guaranteed pension for the thrill of managing our own 401Ks.

The stock market isn't a guaranteed highway to a wealthy retirement though, no matter what the brochures your company gives out telling you to invest the maximum in your 401K might imply, with their happy pictures of joyful retired people sailing around the world on their personal yachts.

I don't plan to pull huge wads of money out of the stock market just yet myself, but I do take note of the fact that when times get economically stressful (as they inevitably do from time to time), the stock market isn't always the best place to be. The United States is currently waging an expensive overseas war while attempting to maintain Republican tax cuts. The last time a President tried to wage a war without paying for it (President Johnson during the Vietnam War of the 1960s, who did not want to sacrifice his domestic spending in the War on Poverty), the United States economy took a hit that it took more than 10 years to recover from. I would prefer that my personal finances not take a similar hit in the next few years, so I'll probably pull back into more conservative investments within the next few years.  

Astrology is essentially the study of cycles and history--the same two things that those interested in the stock market study. I have nowhere near the knowledge that professional stock watchers do, but I'm old enough now to have learned that what goes around really does come around. In wars, in life, and in the stock market.