Nippon Steel's attempted acquisition of U.S. Steel: A brief astrological case study

On December 18, 2023, in a press release issued at 6 AM EST (8 PM JST), Tokyo-based steel heavyweight Nippon Steel announced its intention to acquire American steelmaker U.S. Steel in an all-cash transaction. While such a big deal, creating an enterprise with value of US$14.9 billion, would of course be expected to face hurdles, Nippon was not hoping for as strong a backlash as the deal did, not only from the steelworkers' union but also from both Biden and Trump teams. Finally, today, Joe Biden, in one of his last acts as the U.S. President, blocked the deal. It remains to be seen if the new President, Donald Trump, would reverse course, though it may be unlikely given that Trump, too, was against the deal on the campaign front. Given the current febrile atmosphere of protectionism in the U.S., unless a court were to somehow give relief to Nippon, it looks difficult that this deal would progress any further.

Without going into the charts of Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel themselves, let us simply look at the moment of that initial press release. A very ill chosen moment, astrology says. Look at the following chart for December 18, 2023, 8 PM JST, Tokyo:

The very first thing you see is Mercury retrograde, a time when one avoids making any major deals or contracts, for they would often be delayed or not work as intended when done during such a period. However, while Mercury retrograde is not a desirable element at all, but it alone is not a deciding factor in itself, so let us see what else the chart shows.

The 1st house ruler, the Sun, representing Nippon Steel itself, here has more essential dignity (by triplicity) than the 7th house ruler, Saturn, representing the partner and the entity to be acquired, U.S. Steel, has (by face). However, it is Saturn that has more accidental dignity, being in an angular house, than the Sun. Given that Nippon Steel is trying to acquire U.S. Steel, rather than the other way round, Nippon's accidental dignity should have been stronger. What it tells us is that Nippon is in a good position to be able to propose this deal yet is unlikely to close it or may face difficulties doing so.

Note also that the other luminary, the Moon, is placed in the 8th house, not a position where you would want a luminary to be in for a business occasion. Not only this, but the announcement was also made in the planetary hour of the Moon. Moon's final two contacts will be squares to Mars and the Sun, both warning not to start a new venture and not to deal with influential people. Note also that Mars, the significator of iron and steel, is under the beams, going towards combustion, peregrine and placed in a succedent house.

Let us look now at three important houses in this chart: the 10th, signifying the business itself; the 9th, signifying regulators of your own country; and the 9th from 9th, that is, the 5th, signifying regulators of foreign lands. The ruler of 10th is a malefic Venus, given that it is in detriment yet very powerful (in an angular house). The ruler of the 9th is the same Mars which we talked about: not greatly placed, but not very evil, too. The ruler of the 5th is a peregrine Jupiter that is also retrograde and at the same time extremely powerfully placed in the chart, close to the Midheaven in the 10th house. This very same Jupiter is also a dispositor of several planets in the chart, thus performing an even more powerful role. If it had not been retrograde, the deal, in spite of the other deficiencies in the chart, would have been a rapid one to close: however, it being retrograde means the company needs to go back to the drawing board.

In summary, Nippon Steel chose an especially bad moment to announce the deal. The difficulties and hurdles that Nippon has gone through in an attempt to be able to close the deal were to be expected when you start with such a bad timing. The future of the deal looks bleak. Given that the ruler of the 2nd house, Nippon's own money and resources, is the badly afflicted Mercury, Nippon may even have to bear quite a bit of monetary loss because of this attempted acquisition.

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