Origins of the terms Bull and Bear Markets

from the Visual Astrology Newsletter http://www.zyntara.com/VisualAstrologyNewsletters/van_October2008/VAN_October2008.htm

 

The terms of "Bull" and "Bear" markets are linked with financial systems. The origin of the terms is obscure but in London in the 1600s and 1700s bearskin sellers were called jobbers and they would at times sell their bearskins before they had acquired them, considered a risky adventure but allowing the jobber to take advantage of all available sales.  However, by the time of the South Sea Bubble of 1721 (the collapse of a trading market in the South Sea which caused huge financial loss in England), the jobbers at this time were keenly anticipating falling prices for bear skins and so actively engaged in the short selling of skins. Their hope was that the price of skins would fall, enabling them to buy skins to fill their orders at a cheaper price. Thus, being pessimistic about the future price of something became associated with the bear. The bull was an animal pitted against the bear in animal fights and thus became the opposite side of the situation - the optimistic attitude.

 

WALL STREET

 

Wall Street has an interesting history. The street was built on the location of a wall which was first built in the 1640s. In 1653 it was strengthened to a 12-foot-high wood stockade which was erected across lower Manhattan from river to river to protect Dutch settlers from attacks by the Indians and, at times, the British. So right from its very origins in the history of the European colonization of the Americas, it became a place of conflict, of a battleground, of building defenses and defending one's material life. It was on this street that the first stock exchange was set up on a small table under a buttonwood tree on 17th May 1792. On that morning, twenty-four stock brokers outside of 68 Wall Street signed what was called the Buttonwood Agreement giving birth to what is now known as the NYSE. No time was recorded for this meeting, but suggestions vary from 07:57 am LMT right through until 11:00 am. So, we can get a Birth Chart for the NYSE. 

When the stock market traders had their historical meeting underneath the buttonwood tree on 17th May 1792 they were unconcerned about the jobbers of London and would have been unaware of or had no regard for the position of the planets in the sky that day.

 

"As above so below" 

 

Now it turns out that every year around the middle of May, for that latitude, the Constellations of the Great Bull and the Great Bear rise together with the Sun.  he stocks traders of 1792, by choosing the May 17th date, totally mirrored the immortal starry battle in the sky, embedding the dynamic between Bear and Bull into the flow of the world's stock markets.  

 

The birth of the New

 

So visually, on the day the NYSE was born, as the Great Bull rose in the eastern sky, just as Ursa Major was walking upon the earth to meet the Great Bullhead on, the world's most influential stock exchange was born. The power on that day seems to be with the Bull as he contains both Mercury and the Sun which sit in the shoulder of the Great Bull of Heaven close to the Pleiades. But this is not the only conflict or balancing act in the sky that day. 

 

 At the same time the Bull of Heaven is squaring off to the Great Bear, the Saturn-Moon conjunction in the zodiac sign of Aries (see natal chart above) is occupying the fishes, Pisces stressing that this time period is about the drawing of things together, holding them as one, the desire to keep a balance Meanwhile  Venus, who seems so gentle with her paran to Vindemiatrix, we can see now is located firmly in the Stare of Cetus .

 

   Visually Venus who rules money and values, had just entered that part of the sky that sits in the Stare of Cetus the Whale. The Visual Astrology Newsletter defined this as independence or supremacy of an individual or a concept that comes at a price, for it is trapped in the stare of the sea monster {the Unconscious} and there will be hidden issues which sit beneath it. We can add further information to this as this part of the sky is bounded on the other side of the ecliptic by the Stare of Medusa (Algol) in the constellation Perseus.

 

Algol always has been considered a very bad star, but it also contains immense female power and a strong consuming passion which can devour with anger, rage or violence. So, this is a highly charged part of the sky and to have Venus, the planet with the ability to radiate and empower, passing between these two gates of passion means the NYSE will have to deal with all the hidden collective neuroses associated with money and the power that money wields.

 

Now we can understand the NYSE's tendency to move from times of stability to times of great drama and passion; now we can understand the constant struggle to balance;, andnow we can understand the battle between the bear and the bull and how these have been embodied around the world's markets.