Weekly Market Recap — Week Ending October 17, 2025

Markets Enter the Burn Zone as the Moon Separates from Venus and Moves Toward a Critical Reset

As we open the trading week, the market sits under a waning balsamic Moon in Libra, freshly separated from Venus, and on course for a New Moon in the Via Combusta—the so-called fiery road, a zone from 15° Libra to 15° Scorpio long associated with instability, purification, and volatility.

Today’s Moon–Venus conjunction, now separating, reflects a brief moment of emotional alignment between sentiment (Moon) and value (Venus). That window is now closing. Venus remains early in Libra, dignified but not yet dominant—offering ideals of balance and beauty, but with little strength to assert them yet. The Moon, moving quickly ahead, carries the imprint of this conjunction forward into darker, more volatile territory. As she enters the Via Combusta, we transition into a stretch of sky archetypally linked to crisis, recalibration, and irreversible momentum.

This zone has never been comfortable for markets. The Via Combusta is not inherently negative, but it is purifying. It strips away illusion and sentimentality, especially when the Moon is balsamic—a phase marked by psychological release and internal closure. The Moon here doesn’t initiate; she reveals what must be left behind. Combined with Libra’s valuation-driven air and the Moon’s rapid motion into combustion with the Sun tomorrow, we are likely to see increased nervousness in risk assets and a preference for safety—even as surface-level optimism persists.

In practical market terms, this manifests as a gap between price action and conviction. Stocks may rise, as they did last week, but behind the gains is a retreat in yields, a surge in gold, and the quiet exodus from speculative growth into hard assets and income. The Moon leaving Venus and heading toward the Sun in a combust zone speaks to a narrative transition. Markets are emotionally detaching from prior cycles—rotations, growth expectations, policy assumptions—and moving toward something not yet fully formed, but already underway.

This is further complicated by Mars and Mercury conjoined in Scorpio, still active and exerting pressure behind the scenes. These two together in Scorpio reflect strategic maneuvers, institutional discretion, and penetrating analysis. This is not about headlines or price movement; it’s about where the capital is actually moving—and why. While the Libra trio (Sun, Moon, Venus) tries to maintain balance, Scorpio’s influence digs beneath the surface. Traders and analysts may sense calm, but positioning says otherwise.

Add to that the dominance of cardinal signs and a heavy air–water mix, and you get a market with high momentum potential but no coherent direction. This is energy that wants to move but can’t yet decide how—which aligns perfectly with the Moon’s current condition: balsamic, separating from a benefic, entering a historically fraught zone, and heading toward solar conjunction. That’s not the profile of a confident market—it’s the psychological tone of a market in transition.

Tomorrow’s New Moon at 26° Libra, firmly within the Via Combusta, will be the formal reset. But the emotional and strategic groundwork is happening now. The fact that this lunation will be combust—burning in the light of the Sun—means it may not provide immediate clarity. The new cycle begins, but visibility remains low. It may not be until later in the week, or even the next lunation phase, that direction solidifies.

Key Archetypal Indicators Driving Market Mood: