Gochar: how planets in transit are read
Gochar (गोचर) means "movement" and is the Jyotish word for transits: where the planets are now, read against a birth chart. In Indian practice transits are usually counted from the birth Moon sign (the Chandra lagna). The Moon's sign is house 1, the next sign house 2, and so on round the twelve signs.
Slow planets set the tone
Fast planets change sign often: the Moon about every 2¼ days, the Sun, Mercury and Venus roughly monthly, Mars every six weeks or so. The slow planets stay much longer: Jupiter about a year in each sign, Rahu and Ketu about 18 months, Saturn about two and a half years. That is why Gochar readings for the year ahead focus on Jupiter and Saturn.
The classical rules
Texts such as Phaladeepika list the houses from the Moon where each planet's transit is favourable:
| Planet | Favourable houses from the Moon |
|---|---|
| Sun | 3, 6, 10, 11 |
| Moon | 1, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11 |
| Mars | 3, 6, 11 |
| Mercury | 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11 |
| Jupiter | 2, 5, 7, 9, 11 |
| Venus | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 12 |
| Saturn | 3, 6, 11 |
| Rahu, Ketu | 3, 6, 11 |
The same texts add vedha, an obstruction: a favourable transit can be blocked when another planet stands in a paired house. Saturn passing over the 12th, 1st and 2nd houses from the Moon is Sade Sati, the most discussed transit of all.
A worked example
Reliance Industries listed on NSE on 29 November 1995. At 09:15 IST that morning the Moon was in Kumbha, so Kumbha is its house 1. On 1 February 2018 Jupiter was in Tula and Saturn in Dhanu. Counting from Kumbha, Tula is the 9th house (favourable for Jupiter) and Dhanu the 11th (favourable for Saturn, and outside Sade Sati). By the rule, Reliance was "favoured" that month.
Giving a company a chart
Companies have no birth time, so we use the moment trading began: the NSE listing date at 09:15 IST in Mumbai. Every NSE stock has such a listing-day kundli on this site, with today's Gochar and the dates its status next changes. Signed-in visitors see their own Gochar on My kundli.
What our test found
Test H11 picked, each month, the liquid NSE stocks whose listing Moon had Jupiter in a favourable house and Saturn outside Sade Sati, and compared them with all other stocks. From 2016 to 2023, favoured stocks did +21.1 basis points a month better than the rest (p = 0.025 on its own, 0.32 after correcting for all 13 tests), so it does not count as an effect. The same rule now runs live as the Astro picks paper portfolio, next to a random twin. See the H11 page.
For learning and curiosity, not investment advice.