Is 2020 Second Half Turnaround Likely?

Now might be a good time to ask if the heavens support optimistic market assessments, astrologer says

Perhaps what President Trump could use right now is advice from a good astrologer?

At the moment, the hopeful, optimistic messages emanating from the White House are not supported by planetary patterns that will be forming in the night sky during the second half of 2020, says business astrologer Grace K. Morris, MA.

“The same patterns that set off the year’s calamitous events, from the pandemic to unemployment now at 14.7 percent, will repeat in the fall as the same Saturn/Pluto themes return,” she writes in her monthly Astro Economics Stock Market Newsletter.

Morris is author of How to Choose Stocks to Outperform the Market in 2020 and is Business Editor for the Astrology News Service (ANS).  Of pressing concern is the stressful Saturn/Pluto conjunction aspect that will form when Saturn, by retrograde motion, reverses course and moves back into the astrological sign of Capricorn in early July, where it will remain until mid-December.

Saturn will once again line up with explosive Pluto in late degrees of the sign. And the conjunction will later be joined by Jupiter, which tends to oversize everything it contacts.   

“Most likely, with the same patterns that began this disruptive year returning there could be a further outbreak of the virus, which equates to continued high unemployment, permanent job cuts and more business bankruptcies,” she said.

The April jobs report showed unemployment at its worst since the Great Depression in 1932 with 20.5 million unemployed.  The leisure and hospitality Industry had 7.7 million unemployed, education and healthcare had 2.5 million, retail 2.1 million and manufacturing 1.3 million. 

It’s unlikely most of these workers will be called back soon, she opined.

Morris says the world is swimming in oil. Tankers full of oil stand off the coasts of California and Singapore with no place to unload their cargo.

After December 2020, the fossil fuel industry is not expected to receive a great deal of planetary support.  Jupiter will move on to conjoin Saturn at zero degrees of the next sign, Aquarius, which is an air sign.     

“Investor interest in fossil fuels will be replaced by Aquarian- type products like windmills, solar panels and the like,” she said. Out of the current 2020 crisis will come many changes.  Telemedicine, telework and teleducation are “changing how we live,” she added.

Don’t Expect V-shaped Recovery

Morris doubts the stock market will see a V-shaped recovery because the market cycle is not over.

“The stock market will probably continue to offer buying opportunities as we are still in a long-term secular bull market for at least a few more years. Normally the stock market and the economy are in close tandem within six months, but this is not the case in this extraordinary year with everything turned upside-down.”

In addition to the downturn in employment and the enormous amount of debt incurred, a slow recovery will affect the economy for many years, Morris believes.

“The stock market is currently 15 percent below its high but continues its bullish climb.  The 40-year bull market in bonds appears to be over.

“Because of the pandemic, the U.S. Domestic Product (GDP) will now be even lower than forecast and certainly lower than 2 percent in 2020.  China’s GDP is expected to drop to 6 percent,” Morris said, adding: “If the U.S./China trade war continues this will mean headwinds to growth for both countries. And Europe will also experience lower GDP numbers,” she said.