The method here is to use shifting palace to read the individual five industries, paying attention in particular to the quality of the Wealth Star for the industry in question. Here is a reminder of the 2014 BaZi chart:

2014 BaZi Chart

IMPORTANT: My forecasts are done as a matter of academic interest, and I make it public as a form of intellectual accountability. Under no circumstances do I in any way recommend you ACT upon such information, and I shall not be responsible for any losses, financial or otherwise, as a result of reliance on the information presented here.

Water Industries (Logistics, Tourism, Drinks, Fisheries, Aquatics, Travel)

This is interesting because Water is not present but Fire is very strong – Fire being the wealth of Water would arguably suggest that Water industries would do well. However, when wealth is TOO STRONG, and Resource is weak (Metal is weak here) that may suggest a contrary outcome – namely, the element becomes over-controlled. Water is too dried up here and exhausted in the annual chart to even be able to move so these industries whilst there may still be opportunities for profit, lack the resources or confidence to look for profit opportunities. As an interesting corollary, Earth is overly strong this year and the counterpart to logistics is naturally, storage and warehousing (which is Earth), and which shows stagnancy or zero growth in 2014.

Fire Industries (Aviation, Media, Entertainment, IT)

The wealth star is immensely weak for the Fire industries, and is confined to a Direct Wealth Star only. Competition is intense in 2014 for these industries and the natural target for problems in 2014 will be airlines, especially since Water is correspondingly negatively affected. Of course, the presence of strong RW stars can suggest also the capacity to go public but since most of the world’s key global airlines are already public listed, this is unlikely to be a significant development. On the IT front however, since RW is the primary method for the making of many tech millionaires, there should be a bump in IPOs from Silicon Valley – some of these stocks are unlikely to debut well given the relative weakness of the Wealth Star, but given the strong quality of the Resource Star for Fire, there should still be a good number of paper millionaires in 2014.

Specifically for the film industry (as I have a special interest in it) – the summer blockbuster season may under-perform due to excessive competition or due to excessive budgets for tentpoles. Instead, old-faithful reliable genres (the Direct Wealth stuff) may end up doing better or, Water-centric films (dramas, blockbusters that have themes about water) will probably find resonance.

Earth Industries (Real Estate, Insurance, Construction, Mining)

There is NO WEALTH in 2014 for the Earth industries due to the absence of Water in the year. Accordingly, I would expect this to be the year when the Real Estate industry finally hits the wall. Insurance will be a particularly interesting sector to observe, given the cross-over with the Metal industry as insurance is increasingly taking on a ‘financial’ character these days – CDOs for example, are an illustration of insurance becoming a financial product. The Resource Star is extremely strong for the Earth Industries in 2014, suggesting that there will be stagnation in these industries or paralysis.  Indeed, extremely hot Wu Earth suggests crumbling which implies there may be an increase in abandoned projects in 2014. Interestingly, due to the fact that there is no wealth element, the excessive dryness of the Earth element in 2014 may render it more ‘greedy’ for water. Accordingly, real estate developers may attempt to continue to keep prices high or find new ways to milk more out of buyers, in spite of the fact that demand may not be there. Mining industries specifically find that they have plenty of opportunities for mineral exploitation or permits but possibly insufficient cashflow to bankroll their efforts or simply a lack of demand.

Metal Industries (Banking, Finance, Automobiles, Legal)

On the surface, the Metal industries appear to be in the money so to speak (hurray for the bankers again?). After all, there is a preponderance of Wealth in the chart for Metal. However, the fact that metal is extremely weak in 2014, being surrounded by control elements (Wealth and Officer) and devoid of any support, actually renders the outcome the reverse: Greed and Legal Reform (or lawsuits) will once again, see the financial industry get rocked as the tiny Xin Metal becomes blunted by attempts to get its hands on the Wood. Significant here is the overly strong Fire element in the year – this can signify either excessive regulation which results in the industry being over-controlled and so unable to move/act OR it can indicate lawsuits as a result of cowboy behaviour, prompted by greed from trying to get hold of all the wealth that seems to be around.

An alternative interpretation of this is that small currencies will get whacked in 2014 (the Argentinian Peso run is already illustrative of this) or the boutique hedge funds will suffer serious negative financial outcomes in 2014. It may also suggest boutique financial services (such as private wealth management) may take a hit in 2014, or find themselves under increased scrutiny, or worse, are jettisoned by their big brother parent banks to fend for themselves (Geng Metal is noticeably absent in 2014).

It’s instructional to look at the BaZi for 2008, when the financial crisis happened, to see why there is a strong possibility there will be another financial crisis in 2014:

BaZi chart for 2008

There are some noticeable common features between the 2008 and 2014 BaZi charts – preponderance of Wealth Star for Metal, and extremely strong Officer/7Killings Star as well. There is also a notable absence of any Rob Wealth Star, notably, Geng, in the chart for Xin Metal. An interesting common thematic also is the presence of two Jia Zi from the same pair – Jia Xu and Jia Yin in 2008, Bing Wu and Bing Yin in 2014. In both 2008 and 2014, the Rob Wealth Star for the Day Master of the year was also significantly strong.

Perhaps the significant difference in between 2008 and 2014 is the absence of the double Graveyard – this suggests that whilst there will be a financial crisis involving the finance industry in 2014, there will not be bank failures. (trivia point: in 2008, although a number of banks were acquired/forced sold, only two were allowed to go bankrupt: Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual or WaMu.). However, based on the similarities in the two years, I would posit that a banking sector crisis is definitely in the offing in 2014.

An interesting difference between 2008 and 2014 however is also the prominence of the Xin Metal element in 2014 vs in 2008. This suggests that unlike in 2008, when the crisis seemed to unfold almost from nowhere (hidden from view), in 2014, the crisis will unfold openly, suggesting that there will be a certain level of awareness or acknowledgment that we are in for a financial sector blow out. Since the 7 Killings Star for Xin Metal dominates in 2014 (by contrast, it was hidden in 2008), this suggests that action to deal with the crisis may well be more open and decisive in 2014 than it was in 2008 or that the crisis will simply be quick and deadly (especially given the destruction between Xin Mao and the Day Pillar of 2014.)

Wood Industries (education, timber, agriculture)

Since Wealth is strong in 2014 for Wood, the Wood industries would seem to be poised to do well. Unfortunately, the Rob Wealth Star is also equally strong in 2014, which accordingly means it will potentially be a zero-sum gain for Wood Industries in 2014. The Education sector of course suffers the most from an excess of competition – notably, the Hurting Officer Star is particularly strong this year, suggesting that players in the education sector that attempt to engage in disruptive or radical strategies when it comes to the education sector will emerge the winners. By contrast, Education businesses that continue to rely on old-school approaches or more traditional methods of education may find themselves losing out (since the Eating God Star, Bing, grows the Jia and Yi wood, vs Ding Fire, the Hurting Officer Star, which consumes Jia and Yi). Interestingly, there is no Resource Star this year for Wood, which affirms the absence of any form of meaningful growth for the sector.

For the agricultural industry, the absence of Water naturally suggests drought. Between the Jia and Yi, Yi arguably will be more affected by the absence of water than Jia just on sheer size alone. Thus, ground-grown produce is likely to suffer more than produce from trees (ie: rice/wheat vs palm oil/fruit).