Planetary Stock Trading
Planetary Stock Trading is a book written by a financial astrologer and fund manager Bill Meridian. It is a manual on how to spot stock market winners by their first trade horoscopes and their astrological transits. Meridian makes use of several concepts in the book which are not common in traditional astrology, including the use of declinations, the inclusion of asteroids and hypothetical planets, and the study of first trade charts instead of incorporation charts. General concepts. Incorporation charts versus first-trade charts. Traditionally, when predicting a company's share price, most astrologers use the incorporation dates  of the company. However, Meridian finds that the first-trade dates of the shares give better results when predicting the price movements. He explains that the incorporation charts dictate how the company is doing, while the first-trade charts govern the expectations of the investors. Here is a simple combination of possible results when the two charts agree or disagree: Regarding the incorporation charts, Meridian notes that different states in the US have different practice. In Delaware, the exact time of the incorporation is stamped on the formal document, so the transit could be exact to the minute. In other  states like California, the existence of the corporation starts at midnight of that particular day. In any case, Meridian recommends to use two charts: one with the legal time of incorporation, another with its first business opening (usually 9 am). If a trader decides to work with both charts, Meridian suggests that he shall focus on the shared areas. For example, IBM was incorporated when the Sun was in Aquarius, and it also started trading its shares when the Sun was under the same sign. Therefore, transits to IBM's Sun (and to the sign of Aquarius in general) will  be more powerful than usual. For example, as illustrated in Example 4 in the third edition, when Saturn entered Aquarius in 1991 and stayed there until 1994, the share price of IBM resulted in a slump. Asteroids and Uranian planets. In addition to the major planets used in Western astrology, Meridian also uses asteroids and hypothetical planets. Here is a full list of the heavenly objects he uses, as well as the financial rulerships he assigns to them: Meridian acknowledges that one business could be ruled by more than one planet. For example, a biotech company which deals with the  human body immune system is ruled by both Pluto and Pallas, or a school for children education is ruled by boh Poseidon and Juno, and so on. Predictive techniques. Bullish and bearish transits. Here are a list of positive and negative transits used by Meridian. In addition to traditional aspects by longitude (e.g. square, trine), it also applies to aspects by declination (i.e. parallel and contra-parallel). Eclipses and stations. One shall pay particular attention to the transits made by eclipses and stationing planets. Meridian wrote, "After spending over 20 years in astrology, I can say that one can come  up with a reasonably good forecast by simply observing the eclipses and the stations." He ranks their influences in the following order, although he does not explain how this order is derived: Saturn cycles. Here a Saturn cycle is defined as the ascent of Saturn from the Imum Coeli to the Medium Coeli. Meridian noted that there is a tendency for the share price to rise during this 14-year period, but it tends to peak when Saturn reaches the MC. Thus the Saturn-MC/IC transit is important to watch. Midpoints. Not all natal points are created equal. If  a planet happens to be at the center of a lot of midpoints, then transits to that point will be more powerful. A midpoint refers to the arithmetic mean of the zodiac degrees of two planets. Say, in a particular chart, Venus is at 0° Aries, Mercury is at 0° Taurus, and Mars is at 0° Gemini, then Mercury is at the midpoint of Venus/Mars. Directions and progressions. Meridian claims that he uses both solar arc directions and secondary progressions, but his book only deals with the latter. One of the related techniques is the progressed  lunar cycles. The share price tends to bottom during a progressed new moon, and peaks during a progressed full moon. Mutable signs occupation. Meridian noted that many of the stocks that moved sharply had planets in the first 10 degrees of mutable signs. For example, Caterpillar (CAT) was first traded on 2 December 1929. In the case of CAT, the Sun, Jupiter, Mars and Mercury were all in the 10 to 13 degree Virgo and Sagittarius, which are mutable signs. Trading tactics. General advice on investing with astrology. Meridian believes that, while no rule relating to the market is carved  in stone, the following guidelines are helpful for those who want to use astrology in investing: Picking a date to start a new business. Meridian thinks that, to pick the best date to incorporate a business, one should follow these steps: Meridian emphasize that, although ideally one shall pick a day meeting all three conditions, the first two criteria (eclipses and stations) are the most important. If one can pick a time when the ruler planet is at an eclipse point or at station, then it really does not matter if it happens to be with a bad aspect at  the time. The earnings surprise method. One of the simplest ways to begin planetary stock trading, according to Meridian, is to employ the earnings surprise method. This involves an analysis of the horoscope of the stock on the day that the earnings are announced. If there is little contact with the horoscope at the time, the earnings will be in line with forecasts. In these cases, there is contact to the natal first-trade chart. The advantage to this method is that a trader is only exposed to the market for about 2 days, the day prior to the announcement  and the day after. In the analysis, concentrate on the MC, Sun and Moon, first natally and then by secondary progression both direct and converse. Criticism. There is a section of the book which contains the natal charts of many companies without any annotations. Some reviewers on Amazon think that this part of the book is quite redundant.