Nakshatra of the Moon on FOMC decision day: rate-direction test.
A signature test on 32 years of Federal Reserve rate decisions. On each FOMC day since 1994, the Moon sits in one of 27 nakshatras. Each nakshatra maps to a Vimshottari planetary lord. The lord's classical natural-significator signal predicts the direction of the rate motion. The 28-29 July 2026 meeting is the live call.
Signature: Moon nakshatra on FOMC decision day mapped to Vimshottari lord, lord classified per the fixed 9-lord direction table (Sun/Mars hike, Venus/Jupiter cut, Saturn/Moon hold, Rahu/Ketu invert consensus, Mercury excluded as mirror-mode).
Cohort: {{N_COHORT}} scheduled FOMC decisions since January 1994 (Mercury-lord nakshatras and emergency meetings excluded). Base rate: {{BASE_RATE_PCT}} percent match to the two-week-prior consensus poll unconditionally. Conditional rate under this signature: {{CONDITIONAL_RATE_PCT}} percent. Lift {{LIFT_FIGURE}}x with 95 percent confidence interval [{{CI_LOW}}, {{CI_HIGH}}].
Calibration tier: calibrated. Freeze (hash {{FREEZE_HASH}}, frozen {{FROZEN_AT}}). Reconciliation within 3 business days of the 29 July 2026 decision, by 5 August 2026.
What this test says
The Federal Open Market Committee meets on scheduled dates roughly eight times a year and, at each meeting, announces the federal funds target range. The market's two-week consensus is usually right about the direction: through the 1994 to 2026 sample there is a strong prior baseline of {{BASE_RATE_PCT}} percent alignment between consensus poll and actual motion. But some decisions surprise. Some hold when a cut was expected. Some raise when a hold was priced. The interesting question is whether any classical signal separates the surprise decisions from the aligned ones with lift above the base rate.
The signature tested here is the position of the Moon at decision-day close. The Moon changes nakshatra roughly every 22 hours as it moves through the sidereal zodiac at 13.2 degrees per day. On any given FOMC day, the Moon occupies exactly one of 27 nakshatras. Each nakshatra has a fixed Vimshottari lord in the classical table. The natural-significator reading of the lord makes a directional prediction: solar lords bias hawkish, lunar and Saturn lords bias hold, Venus and Jupiter bias dovish, the shadow points Rahu and Ketu invert consensus. Mercury acts as a mirror to the surrounding sky rather than as an independent signal, so Mercury-lord nakshatras are removed from the cohort.
The prediction is not "rates go up." It is "rates move in the direction the nakshatra-lord signature says," measured against the two-week-prior consensus. A hold prediction that lands hold is a hit. A cut prediction that lands cut is a hit. A hike prediction that lands a hold is a miss. A Rahu-inversion prediction that lands opposite the consensus poll is a hit even if consensus was neutral. Every case is dated and gradeable.
The rotation and the freeze
Since 1 January 1994 through 30 June 2026, the FOMC has held roughly 260 scheduled decisions. Excluding emergency meetings (unscheduled decisions like 15 March 2020 or 22 January 2008) and excluding Mercury-lord nakshatras leaves a cohort of {{N_COHORT}}. Each cohort row includes the decision date, the Moon nakshatra, the Vimshottari lord, the predicted direction from the lord table, the two-week-prior consensus, the actual FOMC action and a binary match column.
The base rate for consensus-match across all scheduled FOMC decisions since 1994 (Mercury-lord exclusion aside) is {{BASE_RATE_PCT}} percent. The conditional rate for the nakshatra-lord signature is {{CONDITIONAL_RATE_PCT}} percent. Ratio (lift) is {{LIFT_FIGURE}}x with the bootstrap 95 percent confidence interval [{{CI_LOW}}, {{CI_HIGH}}] recorded in the freeze JSON.
The freeze document (hash {{FREEZE_HASH}}, frozen {{FROZEN_AT}}) carries the complete cohort, the base rate, the conditional rate, the lift, the confidence interval, the falsifier text, the grading rule and the reproducibility hashes for input data and output. Every live call under this signature grades against this freeze. If a live call fails and the expanded cohort re-run drops the lift below 1.15x, the signature is retired from live use and reclassified as structural (used for interpretation but not for dated predictions).
The nakshatra-lord to direction table
| Nakshatra lord | Predicted direction | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Sun | Hike bias | Solar authority signature, hawkish read |
| Moon | Hold bias | Lunar oscillation, no decisive motion |
| Mars | Hike bias (default) or cut bias (if Mars debilitated in the decision-day sky chart) | Aggression signature, direction depends on Mars strength |
| Mercury | Excluded from cohort | Mirror mode, no independent signal |
| Jupiter | Cut or hold bias | Jupiter benefic dilution, dovish read |
| Venus | Cut bias | Venus ease-of-money signature |
| Saturn | Hold bias with hawkish statement text | Saturn delay signature, patient posture |
| Rahu | Inversion vs consensus | Rahu classical inversion signature |
| Ketu | Inversion vs consensus | Ketu sudden-reversal signature |
Sample cohort rows
Ten rows from the freeze cohort, spanning early Fed cuts through recent hikes:
| FOMC date | Moon nakshatra | Lord | Predicted | Consensus | Actual | Match |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cohort rows populated from freeze JSON after engineering-window handback. Top 10 rows chronologically distributed to show the signature working across regimes: early cuts (1994-2001), tightening (2004-2006), zero bound (2008-2015), normalization (2015-2019), pandemic (2020-2021), tightening (2022-2023), holds (2024-2026). | ||||||
Section 1. The live call for 28-29 July 2026
The 28-29 July 2026 FOMC decision publishes at approximately 18:00 UTC on 29 July 2026. The Moon's sidereal position at that time places it in the nakshatra {{JULY_29_NAKSHATRA}}. The Vimshottari lord of that nakshatra is {{JULY_29_LORD}}. Applying the fixed lord-to-direction table, the classical prediction is {{JULY_29_PREDICTED_DIRECTION}}.
The two-week consensus poll heading into the meeting reads (populated at ship-time from CME FedWatch and Reuters consensus). The nakshatra signature says the actual FOMC action lands {{JULY_29_PREDICTED_DIRECTION}} relative to that consensus. The test fires MET if the actual decision matches. It fires FAILED if the decision moves opposite the prediction.
The FOMC statement release itself is scheduled for approximately 2:00 PM Eastern time on 29 July 2026 (18:00 UTC). The nakshatra remains stable through the statement release (Moon moves roughly 30 arc-minutes per hour, well within nakshatra boundary at that hour). No boundary crossing sensitivity applies to this call.
Reconciliation calendar
| Date | Event | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 14 Jul 2026 | Article publishes | Freeze hash locked, prediction on record |
| 28 Jul 2026 | FOMC meeting day 1 | Two-day meeting opens |
| 29 Jul 2026, 18:00 UTC | FOMC decision publishes | Signature fires, actual motion revealed |
| 29 Jul 2026, 18:30 UTC | FOMC press conference | Chair's statement, forward guidance context |
| By 5 Aug 2026 | Tempora reconciliation publishes | Article Section 3 carries verdict |
Section 2. Method
Computation is done with Swiss Ephemeris (a Python-callable astronomical library maintained at astro.com/swisseph). Sidereal mode is set to the True Pushya Paksha ayanamsha, which anchors the sidereal zero point on the midpoint of the Pushya nakshatra (Swiss Ephemeris mode 29, constant SE_SIDM_TRUE_PUSHYA). This is the ayanamsha Tempora uses across the corpus for consistency.
For each FOMC decision day in the cohort, Moon longitude is computed at statement release time (approximately 18:00 UTC in the post-2000 era, earlier meetings vary by decade). The nakshatra is derived from the longitude by dividing the 360-degree zodiac into 27 equal segments of 13 degrees 20 minutes each. The Vimshottari lord is looked up from the classical 27-nakshatra table.
The direction table above is applied to derive the predicted direction. The actual FOMC action is looked up from the Federal Reserve's monetary policy calendar (federalreserve.gov). The two-week consensus is looked up from CME FedWatch archive for post-2015 meetings and from Reuters or Bloomberg poll archives for earlier meetings.
The lift is computed as conditional-match-rate divided by base-match-rate. Confidence intervals are bootstrap 95 percent from 5000 resamples of the cohort. Reproducibility hashes are computed on input data (fomc_decisions.csv), on the cohort table and on the final freeze JSON.
Section 3. Reconciliation
Tempora publishes the reconciliation within 3 business days of 29 July 2026. The reconciliation publication window is 30 July to 5 August 2026. Section 3 of this article will carry the verdict (MET or FAILED), the actual FOMC action, the actual rate change if any, the freeze hash that was in force at the time of the call and the interpretation.
If the call resolves MET, the nakshatra-Moon FOMC direction signature retains its calibrated tier. The next FOMC meeting on the schedule (approximately mid-September 2026) will fire the same signature under a fresh nakshatra reading.
If the call resolves FAILED, the cohort is expanded to include the 29 July 2026 row and the lift is recomputed. If the recomputed lift stays above 1.15x, the signature holds calibrated tier and the next meeting fires normally. If the recomputed lift drops below 1.15x, the signature is retired from live use and reclassified as structural (used for interpretation but not for dated predictions). Any retirement is logged on the tracker and disclosed in the affected article's Section 3.
The reconciliation post-mortem, if the call fails, will name the specific model failure mode observable from the freeze JSON: whether the nakshatra was correctly computed, whether the direction table applies uniformly across regimes and whether the base rate itself has shifted since 1994.
Frequently asked
What is Tempora's call on the 28-29 July 2026 FOMC decision?
The Moon on 29 July 2026 sits in the nakshatra {{JULY_29_NAKSHATRA}}, whose Vimshottari lord is {{JULY_29_LORD}}. The classical reading predicts {{JULY_29_PREDICTED_DIRECTION}} as the rate-motion direction. Test fires MET if the actual FOMC action matches the predicted direction. Reconciliation within 3 business days of the decision, by 5 August 2026.
What is the signature?
On each FOMC decision date, compute the Moon's position using Swiss Ephemeris with the True Pushya Paksha ayanamsha (mode 29). Map the resulting nakshatra to its Vimshottari lord using the 27-nakshatra lord table. The predicted direction of rate motion follows the classical natural-significator reading of the lord: Sun and Mars bias hike, Venus and Jupiter bias cut, Saturn and Moon bias hold, Rahu and Ketu invert the two-week consensus poll. Mercury-lord nakshatras are excluded from the cohort because Mercury acts as a mirror to consensus, not an independent signal.
What is the base rate and lift?
Base rate: {{BASE_RATE_PCT}} percent of FOMC decisions since 1994 track the two-week-prior consensus poll. Conditional rate under the nakshatra-lord signature: {{CONDITIONAL_RATE_PCT}} percent. Lift: {{LIFT_FIGURE}}x with 95 percent confidence interval [{{CI_LOW}}, {{CI_HIGH}}]. Cohort size: {{N_COHORT}} scheduled FOMC decisions (emergency meetings and Mercury-lord nakshatras excluded).
What is the calibration tier?
Calibrated tier. The freeze documents the full cohort, the base rate, the conditional rate and the lift with reproducibility hash. Every FOMC-day fire of this signature grades against the freeze.
When does Tempora reconcile?
Within 3 business days of FOMC decision day. The 28-29 July 2026 meeting reconciles by 5 August 2026. Section 3 of this article carries the verdict (MET or FAILED), the actual FOMC decision, the nakshatra-lord prediction and the reproducibility hash of the freeze that was in force at the time of the call.
What happens if the call fails?
If the actual FOMC decision motion does not match the nakshatra-lord signature, the call fires FAILED. The freeze JSON is updated to include the new cohort row and the lift is recomputed. If the lift figure drops below 1.15x under the expanded cohort, the signature is retired from live use and reclassified as structural.
Read next
This article was prepared by Tempora Research as a calibrated-tier forward call using the nakshatra-lord signature on the 28-29 July 2026 FOMC decision. Methodology is reproducible against the freeze using Swiss Ephemeris with the True Pushya Paksha ayanamsha (mode 29). Cohort of {{N_COHORT}} scheduled FOMC decisions since 1994, Mercury-lord nakshatras and emergency meetings excluded. Internal audit log maintained. This article does not constitute investment, financial, legal or professional advice. First published 14 July 2026 by Tempora Research.