Stock selection based on five phases

Elementary analysis

If you’ve been following our charts over the years you’ll have noticed that we use relative weightings of the five elements to track the seasons across the year. Wood is related to spring, fire to summer, metal to autumn and water to winter. What about earth? 12 months aren’t divisible by five, and the solution has been to have a month of earth after the two months of the other elements for each season. So, the seasons are effectively bracketed by earth on either side. You may also have noticed that while we track the seasons, that’s not the only component we use, because the weightings change from year to year. The months also have their own ruling combination of the 10 stems and 12 earthly branches and that has an influence on the relative strength of each element for each month. In this year’s bazi, the year commences in the month column with the pairing of yang elements 戊 wu and 寅 yin, symbolising earth and wood. While this information is not sufficient for a comprehensive professional reading, it serves as a starting guide.

Even weaker than last year, metal is absent from the bazi chart and has barely a squeak of power in the hidden 10 gods that accompany the bazi for this year. It has some strength during the autumn, and also the spring on account of the monthly weightings, but we’d expect to see flat activity for much of the year on metals and related industries. Less common ones include watchmaking, aluminium window frames and martial-arts studios.

Shu-Yu Lin
Bikes
Sarina Lesmina
Autos
Alexander Redman
Equity strategy

A strong period across the summer and late autumn. Fire is in the bazi and there is also an abundance of wood, which feeds fire. Even during weaker months, there may still be residual burning from the accumulated wood. We’d expect a decent year from fire-related sectors, featuring the large gas and oil industries, but also including hairdressers, brick-kilns and psychometric testing in large companies or organisations.

Oliver Matthew
Internet
Elinor Leung
Internet
Kevin SW Chen
Technology

A small amount of earth in the bazi should support a reasonable year for earth. Earth-related industries have some room for growth and development, even though the scope is not large. We’re seeing a strong start and end to the year, with the remainder punctuated between low and middling activity. Industries to follow this pattern include antiques, many types of consultancies, and those who write documents for others such as law clerks and so on.

Yew Kiang Wong
Reits
Jonathan Mardjuki
Infrastructure
Samantha Chin
Gas distributors

It’s strong in the bazi – what we call the fundamental qi of a chart is wood this year; the monthly branch, which determines the relative strength of all elements in the chart, is wood; and the day branch is 卯 mao, the strongest of the wood branches. Keep an eye on smaller industries such as cloth, the framing of pictures and scrolls, and galleries.

Aditya Soman
Consumer
Seungjoo Ro
Sustainability
Naphat Chan
Demographics

The second-best element in the chart, water is also well-represented in the bazi, with a small tendency to lose some strength to wood. We expect the usual winter strength for the element, plus a surprise starring role across the summer. The usual industries such as trade and shipping should continue to be strong, so keep an eye out for lesser-lights such as the film industry, middlemen like agents and brokers, and colour-dyeing enterprises.

Devendra Joshi
Microstrategy & quant
Jongmin Shim
Market strategy
Max Hopkins
Nuclear

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.