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Only a year
ago, the NASDAQ was trading at 5000, riding the crest of a technology
wave some thought would never end. The NASDAQ exchange was at the helm
of the longest-running bull market in history. Today, untold numbers are
gasping for air since the dot com boom went bust. During a “bull” market,
an investor’s chances of picking a winner are three to one in his favor.
Those odds turn against him twenty to one during a bear market. With the
tech sector reporting profit losses on an almost daily basis, even the
most optimistic of traders has to admit that the NASDAQ is getting grizzlier
all the time.
NASDAQ stands
for The National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation.
The NASDAQ index is comprised of 5,000 over-the-counter stocks, from software
giants like Microsoft to local banks. It came to life with its first
trade on February 8, 1971. The NASDAQ is a screen-based, electronic and
almost instantaneous stock market. It revolutionized the way stocks are
sold because it put the market directly into the hands of the masses,
thus eliminating the need for the brokerage fees that kept all but the
upper strata of society from participating.
An
Index for the People
 Aptly,
the NASDAQ was born when the Sun was in the “of the people” sign of Aquarius.
Amongst the things that Uranus (the planet most associated with Aquarius)
is said to rule, or be “in charge of,” are electronics and computers.
Uranus has to do with meteoric rises and precipitous falls. Therefore,
it is closely related to boom and bust cycles. Nowhere is this more manifest
than in what happened to the NASDAQ in the latter half of the 1990s.
Always a
vigorous, albeit volatile market, the NASDAQ got a shot in the arm when
brokerage went online because it gave people from down the block and across
the globe instant access to the markets. As Uranus entered Aquarius (April,
1995), the dot com frenzy began. The new economy was expected to change
the way we did business. Brick and mortar businesses were to go the way
of the dinosaur.
As Uranus
headed toward that Aquarian Sun, money poured into the markets, especially
the tech sector, with unprecedented vigor. Stock options made instant
millionaires out of twenty-somethings. Internet start-ups like Yahoo were
trading for more than blue chip giants like General Motors. That some
of these companies had never made a profit didn’t seem to matter in this
new economy.
Ugly
Realities from Saturn
And then
reality reared his ugly head. Just as Uranus came within one degree of
the NASDAQ Sun, a boulder was thrown in the form of a difficult 90-degree
square from restrictive Saturn in the sign of Taurus, and with it, the
bull market came to a close. Investors buy on future expectations. With
Saturn, the planet of order, rules and frugality around, those expectations
darkened. The result was that massive quantities of money fled the market.
Each decline no longer resulted in a larger rally. Financial pundits blamed
it on uncertainty, promising it would bounce back right after the election,
then right after the inauguration, then after interest rates came down.
These events came and went, but nothing could stir the NASDAQ upward.
Saturn demands
accountability, and the figures didn’t add up. While there are differing
calculations for earnings to profits (PE ratios), most agree that fifteen
to twenty times earnings makes for a healthy ratio between stock and company.
At their peak, some Internet stocks were trading at better than 300 times
their annual income! It doesn’t take a financial genius to see that the
Internet bubble had to burst.
NASDAQ’s
Rapid Uranian Rise
Despite the
pain Saturn’s correction might have been to tech-heavy investors, its
arrival was essential in order to avoid a crash similar to 1929. Consider
this: It took the NASDAQ a full 24 years and five months to cross
the 1000-point mark (July 17, 1995, as Uranus hit 25 degrees Capricorn).
Meanwhile, it took only three years to hit 2000 (July 16, 1998, with Uranus
at 11 degrees Aquarius). It then took but a mere year and three months
for it to cross 3000 (November 3, 1999, with Uranus at 13 degrees Aquarius).
After only eight weeks, the NASDAQ crossed 4000 (December 29, 1999, with
Uranus at 14 degrees Aquarius). Finally, ten short weeks later and only
minutes away from conjoining the Sun (March 9, 2000, Uranus at 18 degrees
Aquarius closing on the NASDAQ natal Sun at 19 degrees Aquarius), the
NASDAQ hit 5000. Four days later the NASDAQ began a tumble that has not
stopped yet.
The
Future for NASDAQ
The stock
fund managers will tell you that markets always rebound—eventually. Historically,
investors rarely go back to a stock that has let them down. Since the
NASDAQ is 70 percent tech, this is worrisome to the over-the-counter market
as a whole. Still, it is not yet time to cash in your Microsoft. As the
flowers spring to life, so too will the NASDAQ, which, thanks to a favorable
120-degree trine from expansive Jupiter in Gemini to the NASDAQ Sun, will
see optimism return to the markets.
By the end
of May, the tech sector will get a positive jolt as Uranus will once again
head toward the NASDAQ Sun, this time in a backward or retrograde motion,
and without Saturn to hamper its growth. Unfortunately, this will not
be the lengthy rally of yesteryear. By Halloween the tech profits will
turn to pumpkins as Uranus turns back from the Sun.
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