Dog days ahead for him?

Trump (left) and Yeung’s new book of feng shui predictions (right)

The 12 Chinese zodiac signs calibrate with Jupiter’s orbit around the sun, which takes 12 Earth years. As a general rule of thumb, one is likely to have a very fateful year in years corresponding to one’s birth sign – which means those born in a Year of the Dog should take measures to mitigate potential bad luck in the year ahead.

The notion that Dog years tend to be fateful for Dogs looks to have merit where American President Donald Trump is concerned. Born in 1946, Trump – arguably the world’s most famous living Dog – appeared on Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest Americans in 1982 (a Dog year) as his fortune reached $100 million; 12 years later, however, he was on the verge of bankruptcy and needed to sell a Manhattan real estate project to a group of Hong Kong financiers to raise funds; then in 2006, when he was 60, Trump became a father again as Melania gave birth to their son Barron.

These patterns led us to wonder if this Year of the Dog could be a challenging year – like 1994 – for the American leader, who turns 72 in June. So we decided to seek the view of a prominent Hong Kong feng shui master directly, and ask what the year holds for the world’s alpha Dog. “Trump will suffer from very bad luck in the Year of Dog,” Yeung Tin-ming told WiC. Yeung, who bases his fortune-telling techniques on I-Ching, (also known as The Book of Changes), added: “He might find it difficult to implement his policies and his popularity rating is set to plunge to a record low.”

Indeed, Yeung’s use of an I-Ching oracle (usually a turtle shell) led him to predict that Trump’s allies and aides should stay away from him to avoid his bad fortune spilling over to them. “Even people who stand on his side could be hit by lawsuits or scandals,” Yeung prognosticated, adding that Trump’s stars will be dimmest around April or October. This is when the American president will be most vulnerable to a political crisis, he reckoned (Yeung specifies a possible vote to impeach him in Congress).

Besides being reduced to a lame-duck president, Yeung believes Trump might find 2018 a challenging year when it comes to his personal health. “We all remember Angela Merkel hurt herself skiing when she was about to turn 60 [also a multiple of 12]. In one of his scenarios, Trump might hurt his arm or leg, or at least be suffering from more serious stomach complaints in the coming year,” Yeung said.

In Chinese the term ming-yun consists of two characters which respectively means “destiny” and “fortune”. While the former is usually not changeable, one is able to improve his or her fortune.

So are there ways for Trump to mitigate his bad luck in this sixth cycle of his birth year?

“The best way is keep low-key and hide one’s brightness,” Yeung reckons, borrowing from a longstanding foreign policy axiom introduced by the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. “In practical terms that means Trump should avoid taking to his Twitter account all the time.”

The poor prospects for Trump this year, however, won’t impact the investing public. Indeed, Yeung says a dog year for Trump is not likely to create further mayhem on the stock market (like investors experienced this month) – though we should expect greater than usual stock volatility around the months of June and November.

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