04 Feb 2013 – 03 Feb 2014

Water Snake:

In what proved to be an engrossing game of snakes and ladders, as long as you were not playing, the snake brought a year with so many serpentine twists that it seemed designed to give any investors hiss-trionics. Overlapping scales rose and fell as the beloved Hang Seng rooster danced a pas de deux with a snake that now basked in the sun, and then hid under a rock to cool down. The snake cooled with a December drop in temperature and by the end of the year the Heng Seng was no more than a slightly deflated puff-adder.

  • 04 Feb
    A 213-year-old law banning women from wearing trousers is revoked in France
  • 28 Feb
    Pope Benedict XVI becomes the first pope to resign in nearly 600 years
  • 03 Mar
    A two-year old girl in the USA is the first to be born with HIV and then cured
  • 20 Mar
    Large North Korean cyberattack on South Korea
  • 15 Apr
    Two bombs explode during the Boston Marathon
  • 05 May
    In Malaysia’s general elections, Najib Razak is returned as Prime Minister
  • 20 May
    Edward Snowden begins hiding out in Hong Kong
  • 14 Jun
    Hassan Rouhani becomes President of Iran
  • 22 Jun
    The world’s longest Viking ship goes on display in Copenhagen
  • 03 Jul
    Egyptian President Morsi is deposed in a military coup
  • 20 Jul
    The Wind Rises, a film by Miyazaki Hayao, is released in Japan
  • 12 Aug
    Whitey Bulger, an American gangster, is found guilty of racketeering
  • 07 Sep
    Japan is awarded the 2020 Olympic Games
  • 17 Sep
    Grand Theft Auto V earns more than half a billion dollars on the first day of release
  • 03 Oct
    Xi Jinping announces plans for a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road
  • 18 Oct
    In a world-first, Saudi Arabia declines a seat on the UN Security Council
  • 05 Nov
    India successfully launches the Mars Orbiter Mission
  • 12 Nov
    UK artist Francis Bacon painting sells at auction for a record US$142m
  • 07 Dec
    The Bali Package, agreed to by all WTO members, is signed
  • 01 Jan
    Latvia adopts the euro and becomes the eighteenth member of the Eurozone
  • 12 Jan
    The True Detective series begins on HBO
04 Feb 2001 – 03 Feb 2002

Metal Snake:

A fine year for rattling investors as the taipans headed for their snake-holes. A little forbidden fruit from April to June had punters salivating venomously, but they had only bought a krait of moonshine, and the best roll of the dice for the year turned out to be snake-eyes. It is true that snakes can detect movement, and this one slithered down through the summer and into the autumn, sloughing nearly half its weight by October. A natural feeder at irregular intervals meant the rooster was left just scraps between then and the following year.

  • 12 Feb
    The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft makes the first landing on an asteroid
  • 18 Feb
    The Sampit conflict, inter-ethnic violence, breaks out in Indonesia
  • 21 Mar
    The Nintendo Game Boy Advance handheld is released in Japan
  • 24 Apr
    Koizumi Junichiro becomes Prime Minister of Japan
  • 28 Apr
    A Russian spacecraft carries the first space tourist, an American
  • 08 May
    Hong Kong hosts the Fortune Global Forum
  • 24 May
    A 15-year-old Sherpa becomes the youngest person to summit Mt Everest
  • 01 Jun
    The Crown Prince of Nepal shoots many members of his family, including the king
  • 21 Jun
    The longest train ever, measuring over seven kilometres, carries iron ore in Australia
  • 13 Jul
    China is awarded the 2008 Olympic Games
  • 20 Jul
    Premier of Miyazaki Hayao’s anime film Spirited Away
  • 08 Aug
    The Genesis probe takes off to capture particles near the sun before returning to earth
  • 21 Aug
    NATO sends a peace-keeping force to Macedonia
  • 03 Sep
    Falling apartment prices in Hong Kong briefly halts the Home Ownership Scheme
  • 11 Sep
    Attacks on targets in the USA lead to the War on Terror
  • 01 Oct
    The Bank of China (Hong Kong) absorbs a dozen other institutions under its aegis
  • 13 Oct
    US scientists successfully clone an embryo
  • 01 Nov
    The Financial Holding Company Act in Taiwan comes into force
  • 04 Nov
    The first Harry Potter film premiers in London
  • 13 Dec
    The first SM Supermall opens in China, in Xiamen
  • 28 Dec
    KGI Financial Holding Co Ltd founded in Taiwan
  • 29 Jan
    George W Bush identifies the Axis of Evil in his State of the Union address
04 Feb 1989 – 03 Feb 1990

Earth Snake:

A modest beginning to the year extended right through the spring as the snake warmed to its task. A drastic plunge in early June saw confidence in the great snakes in the sky fall to an all-time low for the year. After that descent, the snake behaved itself through the rest of the calendar year in a sinuous climb back towards the warmth of the sun. From there to the lunar new year, it was like a slinky, slowly slithering down, finishing the year lower than it began.

  • 14 Feb
    Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian leader, orders death of writer Salman Rushdie
  • 24 Feb
    Burial of Japanese Emperor Hirohito
  • 02 Mar
    Hong Kong operates the first voluntary repatriation of Vietnamese refugees
  • 28 Mar
    Boris Yeltsin and other reformers win victories in Russian elections
  • 12 Apr
    Sugar Ray Robinson, world champion boxer dies in hospital at 68
  • 03 May
    Hungary lifts the Iron Curtain by dismantling the fence along the Austrian border
  • 15 May
    Russian leader Gorbachev meets Deng Xiaoping in Beijing
  • 04 Jun
    800 die in Trans-Siberian rail crash
  • 06 Jun
    Funeral of Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini sparks hysteria in Iran
  • 09 Jul
    Two bombs explode in Mecca, one death and 16 injured
  • 11 Jul
    Death of Laurence Olivier, great British actor
  • 07 Aug
    Resignation of New Zealand Prime Minister, David Lange
  • 21 Sep
    The Eastern Harbour Crossing tunnel opens to vehicular traffic in Hong Kong
  • 28 Sep
    Ferdinand Marcos, former President of the Philippines dies in Hawaii
  • 15 Oct
    8 Black Nationalist prisoners released in South Africa as Apartheid nears the end
  • 17 Oct
    San Francisco devastated by 6.9 magnitude earthquake
  • 06 Nov
    First meeting of Apec, held in Australia
  • 07 Nov
    Prince Charles and Princess Diana visit Hong Kong
  • 25 Dec
    Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife are executed
  • 30 Dec
    Hong Kong phone numbers lose area codes and become seven digits long
  • 02 Jan
    The Dow Jones reaches a record high of 2,810 points
  • 11 Jan
    200,000 people gather to demand the return of independence to Lithuania
04 Feb 1977 – 03 Feb 1978

Fire Snake:

Coiling and coiling in the widening gyre the snake could not charm the rooster. A year of zig and zag, with a hiss-toric zagging down towards the end, meant the first collaboration between the two ended with dissatisfaction weighing down the scales. A rapid recovery from that venomous bite could not viper away all our tears, and addering it up, the year closed with a fangs-for-nothing fall, amounting to little more than a load of old cobras.

  • 07 Feb
    The USSR launches the final mission to the Salyut 5 space station
  • 18 Feb
    Maiden flight of the space shuttle Enterprise
  • 01 Mar
    The Bank of America begins using the name Visa for its credit cards
  • 10 Mar
    The rings of Uranus are discovered
  • 02 Apr
    Fleetwood Mac’s album Rumours reaches No.1 for the first of 31 weeks
  • 30 Apr
    Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo begin protests in Argentina about missing children
  • 17 May
    Menachem Begin’s Likud Party win elections in Israel
  • 19 May
    The final trip of the Orient Express train to end in Istanbul
  • 06 Jun
    Newspaper reports that the USA has developed the first neutron bomb
  • 15 Jun
    First Spanish elections after 41 years of dictatorship
  • 05 Jul
    Military overthrow of the first elected Prime Minister of Pakistan
  • 16 Jul
    Work begins on the Hong Kong Space Museum
  • 12 Aug
    The Hong Kong Repertory Theatre stages its first production
  • 17 Aug
    The USSR icebreaker, Arktika, is the first ship to reach the North Pole
  • 09 Sep
    The Chairman Mao Memorial Hall in Tiananmen Square opens to the public
  • 20 Sep
    Vietnam joins the United Nations
  • 17 Oct
    German commandos rescue passengers from a hijacked plane in Somalia
  • 26 Oct
    The last natural case of smallpox is found
  • 19 Mov
    Egyptian President Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to visit Israel
  • 10 Dec
    Resumption of the Gaokao exam in China
  • 30 Dec
    US serial killer Ted Bundy escapes from prison for the second time
  • 01 Jan
    The inaugural broadcast of the nightly National News (Xinwen Lianbo) in China
  • 13 Jan
    Nasa selects its first female astronauts

Feng Shui Index 2025 report

Year of the Wood Snake

Sorcerer: Dr James Greenbaum
Sorcerer's apprentice: Susan Zhang
Wand bearer: Forest Chan
Director/Editor: Yukti Vidyarthi
Translation editor: Melanie Ng
Design/Art: Lizzie Lau; Anna Lai; Elva Lau; Patrina Leung; Jon Berkeley
Web development: Paul Ngan; Timothy Wang
Video production: Alexandra Lee; Luna Deng
Thanks to: Sandy Chen Dowling; Ellen Lo
Producer: Liz Patterson

Launched in 1992 as a Chinese New Year card, the CLSA Feng Shui Index is a light-hearted outlook for the Hong Kong market and a well-loved firm tradition. Please note that this guide is not a research report.