Review and Preview

 Last week was another incredible example of Financial Astrology at work. It didn’t behave quite the way I expected, but it was certainly within the realm of astrological themes. Last week was the week that began with the lunar segment of the full moon in conjunction with Uranus. It illustrates the power of Uranus, and its principle of not just “the unexpected,” but also its utter disregard for tradition, convention, and boundaries of support and resistance in financial markets. How many 500+ point range days did the Dow Jones Industrial Average have last week? How many times have we ever witnessed Gold moving $137.00 from the low of one day to the high of the next day? Or Silver prices moving over 20% in less than 2 days? That is the nature of Uranus, which became even more dramatic when it conjunct the full moon.

 Nearly every major stock market index in the world fell hard into Thursday of last week, and then staged a powerful rally into Friday. The low on Thursday was within one week of September 11, our three-star critical reversal date. In many cases, that was a multi-year low. In Europe, both the Netherlands AEX and German DAX indices fell to their lowest levels since May 2005. The London FTSE fell to its lowest level since September 2006. But in Switzerland, the SMI index held above its low of July 16, representing a case on intermarket bullish divergence, as all indices closed near their highs of the week on Friday.

 In the Far East and Pacific Rim, the All Ordinaries of Australia, Hang Seng of Hong Kong, and Nikkei Index of Japan all fell to their lowest levels in over two years. But once again, the NIFTY Index of India held above its low of July 16, for yet another case of intermarket bullish divergence in this region.

 There was no bullish divergence in the USA however, as all major indices fell to new multi year lows on Thursday. But by Friday’s close they had moved up sharply. In the case of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, it moved over 1000 points from Thursday’s low to Friday’s high, an achievement that I believe represents a “first.”

 Crude Oil and precious metals also exhibited a powerful reversal. From a low of 90.51 on Tuesday, Crude Oil soared to close the week at 104.55. The rallies in Gold and Silver were just as dramatic, and probably represented record (or near-record) gains in 1-2 days.

 Uranus is now clearly the astrological key to understanding today’s financial markets. The prior week ended with the Sun’s translation of the Saturn-Uranus opposition, September 3-12. It began with the Sun translating the forthcoming Uranus-Pluto square, September 12-20. We have been paying close attention to the translation of faster moving planets to the Saturn-Uranus opposition because its starts a 20-month, 5-passage series, on Election Day, November 4. It lasts through July 26, 2010. This 45-year cycle (and its conjunction) has a very impressive historical correlation to long-term cycles culminating in stock indices throughout the world. But we have been overlooking the importance of the 7-passage series of Uranus square Pluto that will take place 2012-2015. Those two planets are close enough in aspect to have an influence now, as testified by last week’s market behavior and the nature of world events that took place August 6-17 when Mars made a translation to this same forthcoming square. That was when the Georgia-Russia crisis erupted, putting the USA and Russia right back into the Cold War mentality of post-World War II. That was big. Then last week the Sun made its translation to the Uranus-Pluto square, and in terms of financial markets – especially debt-related markets – that was big too.

Short-Term Geocosmics

 The translation of the Sun to Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto finally ends this week, which may coincide with less volatility. It wouldn’t take too much to accomplish that since last week was certainly one of the most volatile market weeks in history. However, one should not be lulled in to the belief that there is more certainty in the market than last week, for this week will see the advent of the Mercury retrograde cycle, starting September 24 and lasting through October 15. Like Uranus signatures, Mercury retrograde is also a time when support-resistance levels are oftentimes violated, or just fail to be achieved altogether. News and economic reports tend to be of a conflicting nature, leading investors to more confusion and frustration. Our motto during this period is to “take profits top soon,” which merely means to accept many possible small profits instead of staying with a position in the hopes that it will achieve your price target goal and a bigger profit. It is not a terrible period for very short-term traders, but it can be extremely frustrating for position traders.

 There are a couple of planetary ingresses coming up that are important too. For one, Venus will now leave Libra on September 23.  Venus in Libra has a high correlation to primary cycle troughs in Silver prices, and indeed, it looks like one formed right on our three-star critical reversal date of September 11 at 1022. By the end of last week, Silver was again testing 1300. I don’t think the move up is over by any means, as will be discussed in this week’s MMA Cycle Report. Adding to this belief is the fact that Mars will enter Scorpio October 3 and remain there through November 16. In over 90% of cases studied, there is a powerful rally in precious metals during this ingress. In many cases, that rally starts slightly before Mars moves into Scorpio, when it is in Libra, as was the case during the low of September 11. 

Longer-Term Thoughts

On my website (www.mmacycles.com) is posted an article on “Pluto in Capricorn: The Good, The Bad, Even Worse, and Redemption.” This article was written a year ago, and outlines my views on the transformations to take place in the Federal Reserve Board because of economic crisis coming to the USA, and even the world. My conclusion was that by 2010, it would be an entirely different entity than we knew now (then). In fact, its chairperson could be dismissed, or the entity itself may no longer even exist as an independent body after that. It could conceivably run out of money, which seemed (at the time) laughable. All of this was based on the idea that transiting Pluto would be entering Capricorn, conjunct the Sun-Pluto opposition in the Federal Reserve Board chart (founded December 23, 1913). The conclusion was also based on two other astrological factors. First, Pluto would be transiting in opposition to the USA Venus-Jupiter conjunction, which is a classical bankruptcy-potential aspect for the country’s currency. And the forthcoming Saturn-Uranus opposition fell right into the middle of a grand square to Sun-Moon-Jupiter in Chairman Bernanke’s natal chart (Dec 13, 19532, Augusta, GA, no time, according to Wikopedia.com). This is a classical signature for changing one’s position, and not always the result of choice. With Saturn involved, he may shortly become the scapegoat for all that has gone wrong. Our fire sign heroes are Paulsen the Aries, Bernanke the Sagittarius) are having fits controlling markets now that Jupiter has moved from sign-friendly Sagittarius to the more challenging “prove-it-to-me-sign” of Capricorn at the end of last year.

This week, there were at least two interesting news articles that illustrate these concerns. An Associated Press story by Ellen Simon on Thursday stated, “The Treasury Department, for the first time in its history, said it would begin selling bonds for the Federal Reserve in an effort to help the central bank with its unprecedented borrowing needs.” Why do you issue bonds? You do so because you are running out of cash. But in typical denial fashion, which is common with government leaders of late when economic crisis come knocking at your door, the next paragraph states, “Treasury officials said the action did not mean that the FED was running short of cash, but simply was a way for the government to better manage its financing needs.” Sure. You have a bond auction to raise money, but you are not short of cash. Uh huh.

But there is more trouble brewing ahead. In an excellent web article titled: “It’s the Derivative Stupid! Why Fannie, Freddie and AIG All Had to be Bailed Out,” author Ellen Brown states, “Now the Federal Reserve has announced that it is giving an $85B loan to American International Group (AIG), the world’s largest insurance company, in exchange for a nearly 80% stake in the insurer…. The Fed is buying an insurance company?... The Federal Reserve has the power to print the national money supply, but it is not actually a part of the U.S. Government. It is a private banking corporation owned by a consortium of private banks. The banking industry just bought the world’s largest insurance company, and they used Federal Money to do it.” For this entire story, go to http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/its_the_derivatives.php.

During the last two weeks we witnessed a meltdown and case of hysteria and panic in the financial community. During the last two weeks, transiting Sun made a translation to the forthcoming Saturn-Uranus opposition, and Uranus-Pluto square. In theory, these translation periods are a preview of what to expect when the bigger planetary cycles actually unfold. Saturn will be in opposition to Uranus November 4, 2008-July 26, 2010. And Uranus will square Pluto 2012-2015 (I don’t have the dates with me at the moment). I already stated that Uranus is an important key, and has no respect for tradition and convention. Anything can happen, and usually things happen much more shockingly than anyone expects. But Pluto is involved too, and Pluto represents either threat of termination, or a complete overhaul and/or healing. Many things have gone wrong, which is the nature of Uranus in terms of realization. Many things need to change before the system spins entirely out of control, which is the message of Pluto. Can we do it? Yes, because the longest aspect of all is the Neptune-Pluto cycle, and it is in favorable sextile 1950-2040. However, as with all Pluto aspects, correcting the problem means getting rid of the cause and those who created the threat. And to unwind the damage that has been done since at least 2001 (when Saturn and Pluto were in opposition) may take another decade (when Saturn and Pluto come back into conjunction, or within two years of 2020). In the meantime, we will all have to go through the Saturn-Uranus-Pluto T-square, the influence of which may be quite severe through 2015. But that also represents the absolute bottom, from which redemption can follow.