And here I was hoping against hope that some Calcutta brokers would soon step in. But nothing moved after a patient wait of four days. Fear set in slowly. With the passage of the insurance bill getting into rough weather, the market could break down any moment. And then ITC could crash down to Rs 640, as my technical charts indicated. Not willing to digest a loss, I decided to square up my position. This was at 11.43 am. At 11.45, my telephone rang. It was my broker. He said excitedly that ITC had shot up to Rs 720, with 12 lakh shares changing hands in just two minutes. I was dumb struck. Clearly, fate had waited for me to get out of the way first, because I was not in the winning list.

I could only rue my luck. Had only my telephone not connected me to my brokerfor another five minutes, I would have pocketed Rs 3,800. On the contrary, I made a loss of Rs 400.

All of you now know what happened at the ITC counter on that day. The moral: If your stars do not favour you at a particular time, you do not make money, however skilled you may be.

And this is not the first time that I have come across such instances. Always on the quest to find if stars play a part in making money, I had earlier run into a retired CEO, who astonished me by saying that he had earned a few crores just speculating. He never did any equity research or technical analysis. I immediately asked him to pen his horoscope for my benefit. And lo, there I found a strong mercury governing his second, fifth and eleventh house. And he was running the `dasa' of mercury and `bhukti' of an eleventh house planet. For those who are unfamiliar, the second house represents gain, fifth speculation and eleventh accumulation, and mercury for trading. How did he earn his money? All he did was to play on theinformation that he got from his high-level corporate contacts. He knew what was happening inside the companies that he played on. But the real money maker was his stars, which helped him and even decided how he will make it. It was all there to see in his horoscope.

Or take the case of Ashok. He narrated to me how luck came to him in disguise. He was forced to sell all his stocks at the peak of the Harshad Mehta boom. He sold not out of choice but out of compulsion. Like many others, he too would have held on to the stocks looking for the markets to go up further. But his builder insisted on the payment for his flat. So you see, if the stars have designed that you should gain, you too cannot stop it. And that is what my research into astrology over 15 years tells me.

Why am I telling you these stories? I am telling you because I know how desperately many of us try to find the key to making money on the bourses. You go through research reports. You scan the papers religiously and you talk to brokers andlisten to market gossip. Yet you see that making money quite often goes beyond all these efforts.

You can never predict when the Asian meltdown will break the Sensex or when Bill Clinton will order an attack on Iraq. And even if you had invested after much study, you find the market going against you. Alternately, you also find some one who has foolishly shortsold a strong scrip laughing all the way to the bank because the Iraq attack brought stock prices down. Forget his ignornce, he still makes money.

Can this fit into an investment theory. It should easily. Take any other investment theory. The random walk theory says that stock prices move in random and there is no pattern to it. The probability distribution talks of distribution of stock prices in a constellation of prices. Narrowing down to actionale patterns is not possible.

Then you have the wave theory where you can split hairs as to what wave is in formation and how far you can rely on identifying the wave correctly. Alongside all these throwin the specultors who do not bat an eyelid when taking huge positions in Glaxo, irrespective of its astronomicl price-earnings multiple.

And then, of course, you have the economists and business cycle analysts burning the midnight oil trying to forecast the next six months. And when you go through the myriads of analysis you have to do to be able to squeeze something out of the stock markets, you start wondering about the cost-benefit analysis of the whole effort. The effort is simply too costly for any individual.

Is there a simpler way to it. Yes, there is. Much simpler. Something which encompasses all of these. And that is astrology. Take a hard look at your horoscope. And that should tell you whether you are destined to make money in speculation or not. And who knows you may save your precious time, energy and enormous amount of money if you are not destined to win at stocks.

Does it look defeatist? Not really. The stars only reflect the kind of person you are and whether you are made in a way thatmakes it easy to win at stocks. It tells you about how much do you really care to earn money, how you apply your mind to the task, and how you go about putting your stakes.

It describes your entire mental state and the strategies that you will adopt. In the case of the non-winner, it is just that nature has not made him with all the qualities that are needed to win the specualtion game. Sure an individual wants to win, but he has not the ingredients that go into making him a stock winner, whatever that be.

It could be as simple as being able to ride with the market sentiment without being intellectual or judgemental about it. So take heart if you have not won at stocks, despite sincere attempts. It could well be a case of your stars not favouring you to win. The smarter thing would be to forget the stocks, and invest your time and energy in some other activity, which could be far more rewarding; and you might just stop throwing good money down Dalal street gutters.

And even the winners havesomething to gain from astrology. It is not that stars will always be favourble. You run into major astrological periods called `dasas', `bhuktis' and `antharas'. Some are favourable and some are detrimental. Not only that, if Jupiter happens to be a detrimental planet to one, it could result in a very big loss, which could wipe out all your life savings. And what about scams, scandals, court cases, and suicides related to stock markets. Yes, even these are indicated, and I have seen some amazing horoscopes.

The moral of the story: If you make money in stocks, it is not only because of your effort but basically because you are so destined. And if you are on the other side of the fence, do not feel sorry. For fate has not destined you to win just now. May be it will at another point of time. Do not lose heart or your shirt in the meanwhile.