Financial Astrology for the Star-Skeptical Investor

Scott:
Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast, where we interview Susan Gidel and talk about financial astrology. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Scott Trench and with me today is my star. Get it. Co-host from our sister podcast on the market, Kathy Fettke.

Kathy:
Thanks for introducing me as a star.

Scott:
Awesome. Yeah, you’ll have to retrograde my puns today on the show. Kathy and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else to introduce you to every money story and every money theory because we truly believe that financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you’re starting.

Kathy:
Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big time investments in assets like real estate or look for the stars for answers. We’ll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so you can launch yourself towards your dream.

Scott:
All right, Kathy, we have a new segment of the show called Money Moments where we share a money hack, tip or trick to help you on your financial journey. Today’s Money Moment is an underrated one. Don’t just donate your year old clothing or books. Try to sell them, secondhand stores like Buffalo Exchange or Plato’s Closet will give you cash for good condition clothes. Don’t underestimate Facebook Marketplace or eBay either. I’ve never tried any of those things, but I will definitely try that, especially with some of the baby clothes that our little one is already starting to grow out of. So it’s already tough at nine months. Do you have a money tip for us? Email [email protected]. All right, Kathy, we’re excited to bring in Susan today and talk about financial astrology. What should folks be thinking about as they’re listening in for this one?

Kathy:
Well, I would say you would want to put away and put aside any preconceived ideas about astrology and just come with an open mind.

Scott:
Yeah, I think it’s a fun one. I’d certainly bring a little bit of a skepticism to financial astrology. BiggerPockets Money is here to talk about every money story and I guess in this case, every money theory. There’s some interesting stuff in here. Look, one angle is even if you’re not into astrology, you’re just completely skeptical off the bat. You should be aware of these concepts because psychology influences markets. So even if you’re not convinced that the stars and the movements of the planets impact financial markets and conditions, they may impact how people plan their weeks, plan their days and modify their calendars like Susan does. You should be aware of that because that can have then a downstream financial impact. So an interesting show today. Hope you enjoy it. Before we head into our break and bring Susan in, I want to leave you to contemplate a quote from a very famous wealthy investor here. The quote is, “millionaires don’t use astrology. Billionaires do.” JP Morgan.

Kathy:
That’s so funny because I was just going to say, why wouldn’t an astrologer be a billionaire if they really knew how to follow the signs? So maybe that’s their secret.

Scott:
Maybe BP Money is all about the path to making a million or two, the first couple million and maybe to make the first billion, got to get something else.

Kathy:
Better study the stars.

Scott:
Susan Gidel specializes in financial astrology research and publishing, building on 35 years in the commodity futures business as a journalist and marketing executive. Based in Chicago, she lectures frequently on financial astrology topics ranging from long-term stock market cycles to short-term price outlook at all the major professional astrology associations. Susan, we’re so excited to have you here today on BiggerPockets Money. Thank you for joining us.

Susan:
Well, thanks so much, Scott. It’s a pleasure to be here. I love talking about astrology and markets and financial things.

Scott:
Well, awesome. To start things off, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what astrology is in a general sense?

Susan:
I grew up on a farm and I got interested in the markets because my dad raised corn and would come in for lunch every day. We had to know what the price of corn was doing right then, and I’m like, why? What makes it different today versus yesterday? So I’ve always been fascinated with what makes markets move and prices move. So I studied ag journalism and I worked as a editor reporter for Trade Publication, Futures Magazine where we covered the markets in the industry and eventually got to Chicago. So have a real deep background in the markets and just from an astrology point of view, just kind of always interested in it, had interviewed people when I was a reporter who used astrology in the markets and that kind of fascinated me. So I just ultimately put the two together.

Scott:
I’m curious about this as a subject and maybe you could introduce astrology and why folks should take it seriously if they’re skeptical of astrology coming into this episode, for example.

Susan:
Astrology is just the interpretation of how we’re affected by the planets moving in the sky. I think the easiest way to understand that is to take a look at the tides every day. The tides move in and out, they go with the moon and so if the moon can move the ocean on a regular basis every day, how do we not think that planets might not have some influence on us who are filled with water? That’s just a moon tied kind of situation, but extrapolate from there to all the other planets. Certainly as an astrologer, you look at enough charts and you see how the planet’s moving around them, the snapshot of the birth horoscope, whatever that is, whether it’s a person, a market, an event, an institution, whatever. You see things happen as a watch with movements and when they click in and they click together and spin the next one, when you see things happen, when the planets are making those connections, you go, there’s something to that. I’ve seen enough of it to be convinced.

Kathy:
Yeah, my father was a gardener, not a farmer like you, but he would follow, is it the Farmer’s Almanac?

Susan:
Oh yeah.

Kathy:
Yeah. Just following when the stars tell you to plant things and he would do that. He was so thrilled to see that it actually worked when he had kind of failed for years at gardening until he discovered that. Is that how you started your interest in astrology is from your background in farming?

Susan:
No, not necessarily. I don’t think my dad planted by the sign of the moon or anything. Planted our corn like that. But I was interested that me, my sister and my dad were all born within a week of each other and we were all by sign, we’re all Capricorns and we were all by sign in a harmonious twine to mom who is a Taurus. So I just thought, always thought that was kind of interesting and that’s what got me started. Okay, what are we as Capricorns like and what is she like as a Taurus and how do we relate to each other because of our sun signs?

Scott:
So how far back does this tool go? How long has it been used to make decisions and how effective has it been?

Susan:
Babylonia, thousands of years ago, once again, and said the wise men who followed the star of Bethlehem were astronomers, astrologers. They had been studying the stars. They knew that this important star was going to appear or whatever the planetary connection was, and they converged Bethlehem because they were the learned people who knew about the stars and the planets and had been advising kings and important people about when to go to war, when to flood the Nile, when to harvest crops, that sort of thing.

Kathy:
So how does that tie to finances, which I’m sure a lot of the audience would like to know. How can you time things well using astrology to make good financial decisions?

Susan:
Well, I think from when you’re looking at the stock market, I’ve done a lot of work in studying how the Dow Jones Industrial average works in relationship to the Saturn, Uranus stenotic cycle that lasts 45 years and all the planets have connections to each other and they hook up based on how fast they move, every so often. Jupiter and Saturn every 20 years, Saturn and Uranus every 45. It’s really fascinating to me that the Dow Jones average follows the Saturn, Uranus cycle pretty closely. We’re in the third one since both were conceived in the late 18 hundreds.
So far it has been following right along. The stock market makes a low at the beginning of the cycle when Saturn and Uranus are in the same sign, same degree, and then typically make big bull market tops when they are square to each other. We’ve just had one of those final squares in 21, 22 and Saturn, Uranus made its last square on December 24th, 2021, and the Dow Jones Industrial average topped on 10 days later on January five at 36,952. So it’s still hanging in there in terms of following the pattern of previous cycles that go back more than a hundred years.

Kathy:
Translated. Does that mean we’re going to see more down, more up? I didn’t quite understand that.

Susan:
Part of the cycle, we’re in the hardest part of it right now, the final 25% is always kind of dicey and that lasts until 2032. So we’ve got, we’re in 2023, we’ve been another nine years for it to play out. Barring, Great Depression situation between now and then, I think we’re onto new highs by the end of the decade.

Scott:
What do you think is the reason that this cycle has an impact on prices?

Susan:
Well, Saturn is about the status quo, about staying the same. Uranus is about changing things up, and so when they meet, there’s conversation between the planets archetypally about how do we change what we have now? Particularly on such a long cycle, how do we make change and move forward without too much disruption, without throwing the baby out with the bath water? So it’s just the natural progress of how the planet archetypes work within our lives. How do we just incrementally make change to move forward? They both are close enough that they are considered close enough to earth, they’re considered planets that can affect the economy, actually the three of them, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. Jupiter and Saturn, because they have a 20 year cycle that’s related to the business cycle. Saturn and Uranus be a little longer too, so you can get a feel for how society changes and shifts over a long period of time.

Kathy:
So does each stock or each company fall under its own chart and behave differently? When you say the stock market, it’s just a whole lot of different companies, right? So in general, I have so many questions, but are we just talking about the US? Is it like the US that’s going to do so well or the whole world? How do you divide it?

Susan:
I focus on US markets because that’s where I live. So I can’t speak to how the Saturn, Uranus cycle plays out with other indexes. But typically in the global economy that we have now, they behave relatively similarly where one goes, others follow.

Kathy:
I mean, are there certain companies, obviously I personally think that tech is going to be huge over the next 10 years. We’re going to see so much development, I would think energy and so forth. But how do you know which one is going to take off over the next decade?

Susan:
Once again, I turned to astrology and the big things that have been going on, and for all of us, I think we have just lived through the biggest astrological transit that any of us will experience in our lives. I say that with confidence because it is a Jupiter, Saturn aspect that ended a 150-year period of being an earth signs when they make their conjunctions every 20 years. As of December 20th of 2020, Jupiter and Saturn made a conjunction in an air sign, which they will do now for the next 199 years.
So from an economic perspective, we’ve gone from Jupiter and Saturn and earth signs since the mid 18 hundreds telling us that the economy values things of earth, physical stuff. We’re moving into what I call the air economy where we and the economy and markets will value things of air, ideas, intellectual property, technology, communications, cooperation, global community, all things that the air signs represent. So technology is right in there, and I think ultimately the NASDAQ 100 index will become the primary index to follow. Now, we might not get there for a while yet, and I’m thinking decades, years and decades, but you’re onto it and you’re feeling it, I think. That technology, this is where we have to go in order to make money, how our world will work better, is by focusing on technology things. The astrology supports that in a massive way.

Kathy:
I’m an air sign, so maybe I’m feeling the air.

Susan:
There you go.

Kathy:
What are you, Scott? Do you know what the-

Scott:
I’m a Virgo.

Susan:
Earth.

Kathy:
Oh, so you’re yesterday’s news.

Scott:
Yeah.

Kathy:
I’m just kidding.

Scott:
So my time is over. So I can hear someone being very skeptical about our conversation in a sense here. I think you’ve made some great points here, but I want to also kind of speak in there that maybe you are listening to this and you’re skeptical of what you’re hearing here, but how many people out there, Susan, are using this to inform investment decisions and what are the market correlations with that? Is this, even if I’m skeptical of the actual astrology piece, which perhaps they’re wrong to be, are people using this and is this a psychological component to the market that could be very powerful, potentially? Is it used widely?

Susan:
I don’t know how many people are using it, but I think there’s more than we suspect because in my experience, traders are all about making money and whatever, and they call it the edge, whatever edge they can get, they’re all about it. So if some of them have found an edge by using astrology, I think they have, now because it’s weird, because it’s unpopular, do I think that they let people know about it? No. Even more so if it’s successful, if they find a successful edge, do you think they’re going to tell anybody? No.
So I think there’s more people using it on a regular basis than we might suspect and it must work, or we’d hear more about it, that it doesn’t work. The other thing to take a look at is I consider to be kind of the pioneer in financial astrology. This was a trader named W.D. Gann, and he was famous a hundred years ago and was written up in all the big stock magazines and newspapers in the early 1900s and never really let on what he was using to be so successful. He just called it natural rhythms. But you can see in his work and his many, many, many books and newsletters, he was one of the most successful traders of his time. People today are still trying to figure out how he did it and what he did and that sort of thing. He was very cards close to the vest kind of person about explaining how he did it and how to replicate it.

Scott:
So can you give us, I think that’s that… I completely understand that there’s a complex world to dive into here, but are there any basics for beginners here that you could share with us that help someone get an idea about what to do next? We have the Saturn, Uranus cycle. Is that the first thing that I should be thinking about? Or are there other more fundamental basics for a true beginner who’s completely brand new to this to be thinking about and using astrology to inform financial decisions?

Susan:
Well, you probably heard about Mercury retrograde, and so you could start with Mercury retrograde.

Scott:
What is that?

Kathy:
That’s the thing that as real estate agents, I actually pay attention to this one because you’re not supposed to sign contracts or buy electronics during a Mercury retrograde. Did I get that right?

Susan:
Bingo. Very good.

Scott:
Can we explain what retrograde means for the novices out here?

Susan:
It’s when you look up in the sky, and it appears from our viewpoint on earth that Mercury is traveling backwards. It’s not that Mercury travels backwards, it’s just that the speed of the planet changes as it goes in its orbit around the sun. It speeds up, it slows down. So here on earth, it appears to us that planets move backwards and that’s what’s called retrograde. Mercury goes retrograde for about three weeks at a time, about three times a year. So at the very least, you may hear Mercury retrograde things, you may see it online or on apps, on social media.

Scott:
This is a bad thing.

Susan:
No, not necessarily.

Kathy:
You just don’t want to travel.

Susan:
Well, not not travel, but just be aware that Mercury retrograde, any planet retrograde, I like to call it, it’s like them being on vacation. Mercury’s job is to be in charge of communications, short travel. So when Mercury is retrograde, it’s on vacation. It’s not really paying attention as much as it normally does to travel communications, the internet, your computer, your car. So just be prepared when you know Mercury retrograde’s coming up, it’s time to, okay, let me back up my computer, let me go get my car checked. If there’s something I’ve been meaning to get looked over, is something rattling? Okay, we’ll check that out before Mercury goes retrograde. When you’re traveling really during a Mercury retrograde, the biggest thing is to just give yourself more time. Give yourself half an hour more to get to the airport. Be prepared to stand in line longer at the TSA check-in.
Don’t freak out if the flight gets changed or canceled or is delayed. It’s just Mercury retrograde, not paying attention and being on vacation. So just bring patience with you when Mercury is retrograde. But from communication point of view, it’s a great time to do editing, to if you’re in marketing, to reach out to old leads, reach out to former customers, anything that has the word re in it, review, reconnect, that sort of thing. So I mean, there are ways to use Mercury retrograde in a positive kind of way. Don’t be scared of it because it happens too often. We can’t throughout nine weeks of the year just because Mercury is retrograde.

Scott:
So I looked it up and it looks like Mercury, when it’s in retrograde, the stock market performs more poorly, like to several hundred basis points, percentage wise over the last 50 years. So should I be using Mercury in retrograde as part of my trading strategy, or should I avoid it altogether?

Susan:
You could. I’ve never looked at it. I’ve never studied how the market performs under a Mercury retrograde. I have under a Venus retrograde and Venus retrograde the market, with Venus retrograde all by itself, the market declines maybe 10% or so. But interestingly, if Jupiter is already retrograde and then a Venus retrograde joins it, the market rallies. So I mean you just have to kind of depend on what it is.

Scott:
For those who are curious. I found a website just now called is Mercury in retrograde.com and it very succinctly says no. The next time it’ll go on to retrograde is August 23rd, 2023. So this episode comes out on the 26th of July, so you’ve got another week or two when this comes out before Mercury is in retrograde. You’re welcome. For the advanced warning.

Kathy:
We’re talking about this massive transition from earth sign to air sign, a lot of BiggerPockets audience is invested in real estate and it seems like real estate would be an earth sign. Is that true?

Susan:
It is.

Kathy:
So what does transition mean for real estate moving from earth to air?

Susan:
Well, I think in the long haul, real estate, was it Mark Twain that said they aren’t making any more of it. It seems like it’s still always going to be a good investment unless we completely change how we operate as a society and what is valued in terms of building wealth. But in an air economy, how would real estate perform? What would be an air type real estate sort of thing? High-rise apartment buildings, green space buildings in some way, something that doesn’t impact the climate, something that uses property that creates its own energy. Those would all be, I think, error aspects of a earth related real estate property sort of holding. So anything you can do in investment wise that has an element of air to it, I think is pick that one as opposed to not.

Kathy:
The definition, again, of air, what that means.

Susan:
Air things that are related to the signs of Gemini, Aquarius, and Libra. So ideas, communications, technology, community, cooperation, justice. So, like the cohabitating, communal living would be air oriented real estate kind of thing. Well, I have another one for you to watch in the real estate arena and just in general, but the moon void of course, this may also be a new thing. This happens a couple times a week because the moon moves so quickly and this is an easy thing for everyone to do too. Same deal, look for an app or an online that says is the moon void of course. What that means is that the moon is not making an aspect to any other planet before it changes its sign, which is every two and a half days. So once again, the moon is untethered, it’s off on its own.
It doesn’t really know what to do and it’s not connected to the other planets. So it’s void of course, is the astrological term for it. When the moon is void, also the thing that astrologers say is that nothing comes of it in what you do when the moon is void. So for me, I check when the moon is void and I just mark it on my calendar. I block my calendar online. I don’t take appointments. I don’t try to make anything happen when the moon is void of course. That’s easy to do if you’re, anywhere you’re working, just check out when the moon is void. Sometimes it’s half an hour, sometimes it’s five minutes, sometimes it’s all day. If it’s all day, take the day off. Just have fun. Don’t try to get anything real done. That’s a cool thing and to see how that works.
I ask about the real estate, a friend of mine who’s an astrologer and used to sell real estate said that she had real issues when the moon was void in showing houses. She said, whenever I showed a house when the moon was void of course they didn’t like it. It was just a complete waste of time for everybody. I didn’t get a sale, they didn’t like it. What was the point? So that could be something interesting for you guys to track when the moon is void and if you have showings then to see what people think.

Kathy:
So we know that we’re in a very volatile time right now. A lot of people are expecting a deep dark recession. Others are now saying, oh, it’s just going to be a soft landing. I think a lot of our audience would love to know what you see based on the stars coming in American economics, US economics over the next couple of years. What do you foresee?

Susan:
Well, based on the Saturn, Uranus cycle, I think that the stock market, we could be in a pretty big bear market, which means that there should be a recession accompanying that in some way, into a low that we make in the last, say the last half of 2025 to very early in 2026. So that’s another couple years of, I think potentially drag on the stock market and the economy. I’m looking in particular for the Dow to test 26,000 at the very least between now and then, which is a similar percentage decline to one of the previous Saturn nearness cycles in the Dow that I’ve studied. If that would fail, then 18,000, which would be the COVID low and about a 50% correction. So I’m looking to see how the Dow performs as we get to 26,000, but I’m not looking for a new high until we get through this 25, 26 period and then later into the decade.

Scott:
All right. So I have one final question here. You’ve mentioned a couple of things here. When the moon is void of course, when Mercury is in retrograde and when the Saturn, Uranus cycle is in its last quartile, how do I do it, raising that one? Yeah.

Kathy:
That seems like a Virgo, right? A detailed person.

Scott:
Is there a list that I could get continuing on this theme, Kathy, of more tips like that I can refer to? Or how would I go about compiling a list of these items? Like you mentioned another tip earlier, it was like Venus is in retrograde bad, but Venus and Jupiter, see more notes, are in retrograde good at the same time. So how do I remember all of this and how do I put together a list with all of these like sub-rules and qualifiers and clarification points and hey, if this is generally bad, but then it’s offset by this, then this happens.

Susan:
Really good question. I’m working on a book that might be able to answer it.

Scott:
All right, where could people find out more about this?

Susan:
I’m waiting for the upcoming Mercury retrograde to edit it, which is another good use of Mercury retrograde. I’ve got a good three weeks to really review what I’ve put down on paper.

Kathy:
Good to know.

Susan:
But yeah, it’s just a collection of little tidbits that you pick up along the way.

Scott:
Then take detailed notes.

Susan:
Yeah, there you go. First of all add more. Like I said, start with Mercury retrograde, see if that helps. Throw in a moon void of course, on your calendar. See if that helps. Now a good use of what you could do in a moon void of course, that would be advantageous I think, would be one, if you have to have a meeting where you don’t really want the outcome to be decided for whatever reason. Then schedule the meeting while the moon is void because nothing will happen. Or if you’re a PR person, I would say if you’ve got bad news to announce, announce it during a moon void of course and it should just slip away. No one will care.

Scott:
All right, yeah, well, that’s exactly what I’m hoping to get and so I’ll look forward to when this book comes out. In the meantime, Susan, where can people find out more about you?

Susan:
Check out my website, my name susangidel.com, and there you find book about trading in commodity markets and astrology and how the charts work and that sort of thing. That’s available on amazon.com and you can subscribe to a newsletter I write about markets and where I keep tabs on about eight different big markets, Bitcoin stocks, gold, energy, that sort of thing. That’s all at my website, susangidel.com.

Scott:
Awesome. That’s Susan G-I-D-E-L .com, and we will link to that in the show notes here. Susan, thank you so much for coming on BiggerPockets Money today. This was a wonderful conversation, packed with tidbits and a new interesting angle on personal finance that I’ve never come across before.

Susan:
Well, you’ve taken good notes, Scott, the Virgo that you are. So good for you.

Scott:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate it and hope you have a wonderful rest of your week.

Susan:
Thank you. Thanks so much.

Scott:
All right. That was Susan Gidel from susangidel.com, astrological insights that help you achieve financial success. Kathy, what’d you think?

Kathy:
Huh, wow. It’s a lot to track, right? It seems like… Like I said, it’s always been overwhelming to me, and I do stick to little things that may seem superstitious, but the whole Mercury retrograde thing, whenever I seem to be on a flight that’s been canceled, I look on the calendar and sure enough, it’s Mercury retrograde, so there’s something to it. Again, not for everybody, but still a fun thing to know what some people are thinking.

Scott:
Yeah, and again, you don’t have to believe it or agree with it or those types of things, but if you’re not aware of it and how other people feel about it, you may miss something in your planning process here. Or you may just want to be aware of these things because of how they can affect certain types of folks who do follow this stuff closely. On that note, let’s retrograde out of there. We’ll see you later. This episode of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. I’m Scott Trench. She’s Kathy Fetkke saying, see you later. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please give us a five star review on Spotify or Apple. If you’re looking for even more money content, feel free to visit our YouTube channel at youtube.com/biggerpocketsmoney.

Speaker 4:
BiggerPockets Money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench, produced by Kailyn Bennett, editing by Exodus Media, copywriting by Nate Weinraub. Lastly, a big thank you to the BiggerPockets team for making this show possible.