Merriman Market Analyst

Note: Due to European lecture tour, this column may not be available until Sunday for the next week as well

Review and Preview

This week’s column is being written from the DAV (German Astrological) Congress, taking place in Karlsruhe, Germany. There are approximately 500 professional astrologers and students of astrology convening here this weekend, as we approach the final waning square of Jupiter-Uranus, Mercury turning retrograde, and the third and final conjunction of this season between Venus and Saturn – but this time in Virgo, instead Leo as in the first two instances.

As we enter this powerful geocosmic week, we note that the previous week ended with the Dow Jones Industrial Average making yet another new all-time high    . It was matched with a new high in the NASDAQ and S&P cash market too (but not the nearby S&P futures). New all-time highs were also noted in Asia and the Pacific Rim last week, notably India’s Nifty Index, the Hang Seng of Hong Kong, and Australia’s All Ordinaries. The Japanese Nikkei also closed above 17,000 for the first time since the lows of August 17, but it is still well off its yearly high of 18,300.

The same rally last week did not produce any new all-time or even yearly highs in any of the Euro indices we track. From this we can conclude that the underlying fundamentals in Europe are not as strong or as optimistic about the future as they are in other parts of the world. Perhaps this is because of the soaring value of the euro currency, which made yet another new all-time high against the dollar early last week. This strong Euro may be causing investors to worry about potential loss of global market share by European companies. In Japan, by contrast, the Dollar started to rally nicely against the Yen last week, testing the 1.1700 area, well above its 1.1158 low of August 17.

So what are we to make of the Dollar in the next week? Will it reverse its rally against the Yen, or its decline against the Euro? And regardless of which, it appears to be not so good for stock indices, for each of them, are rallying into this powerful geocosmic week coming up.

Short-Term Geocosmics

Planetary cluster forming this week is very tight, and each of the signatures involved have the possibility of coinciding with a reversal in all financial and commodity markets.

It could be the first one to unfold that causes the reversal. This would be the third and final passage of the Jupiter-Uranus waning square of 2007, occurring this Tuesday, October 9.     Although this 14-year signature has a very strong and consistent correlation to primary and greater cycles in the past, the first two passages of this year did not produce changes until at least three weeks later. In the first instance (January 22), the market was rising, and kept on rising into late February. Then it suddenly broke down as the transiting Sun translated this signature with its conjunction to Uranus. The second instance was May 10-11. Again the stock market was soaring to new all-time highs. But it continued making new all time highs into the first days of June – and then it once again broke down sharply, as the Sun began its translation again over this signature. This time it was the Sun forming a T-square to the Jupiter-Uranus square. There won’t be any translations this time of the Sun to the two planets involved in this signature until early December through December 21. And by that time, Jupiter will already be in the next sign of Capricorn, so we can’t count on it to produce as much.

However, this week also finds Mercury turning retrograde on Thursday, which is also the day of the new moon in Libra. Both of these geocosmic events have important historical associations with reversals in many markets. But the new moon in Libra is especially important in stock markets. Everyone knows about the “October effect,” when stock markets seem to incur a powerful sell-off. In many cases that sell off only lasts a couple days, maybe 2 – 10 days. But these declines have been very sharp in many cases. Well, the new and full moons of the Libra Sun have the highest correlation to highs from which those declines begin, or lows from which the declines end. This is a new moon week, and it happens on the day Mercury turns retrograde. That too is a geocosmic indicator of a reversal in the area of one’s focus. What was important to the market until then is no longer most important. Something else begins to worry the market more. It may be a political, or business, decision. With Saturn in Virgo (Mercury’s sign of rulership), it may have something to do with new fears in worker strikes that disrupt transportation and communications. The two days later (October 13), Venus will make its last contact to Saturn. This is generally a time of worry about money – values are decreasing again, somewhere. And there is fear it will continue. But this signature suggests that maybe not. If prices are already falling into this time, they can find a bottom and start to rebound again. But if they haven’t started to fall much, this could be the deciding factor that pushes prices down well into October, for between October 8-27, Saturn and the South Node of the Moon will be conjunct. It’s possible that worry becomes heavy, and if prices do continue to decline into the following week, they may continue to do so for several more days. But in all likelihood, these signatures suggest that many declining markets will find a bottom by the end of this month, however sharp the decline is.

Longer-Term Thoughts

Pluto in Capricorn. A new era begins January 26, 2008, according to the astrological calendar. I call this period “The Good, The Bad, Even Worse, and then Redemption.” In every historical case of financial markets (dating back to the mid-1700’s), the stock market made an all-time high, followed by one of the worst devastating crashes to historic lows, before recovering again. All while Pluto was in a cardinal sign – and it was in that order: new highs, declines of at least 50% of its value, and then recovery. And so I look for threes new all-time highs to continue into 2008, maybe even into as late as 2011. Then a devastating decline of 50-90%, due sometime between 2011 and 2016 as Uranus square Pluto. Perhaps there is a secondary low - a double bottom – within 10 months of the Saturn-Pluto conjunction of January 2020. And then a recovery (redemption) for many years afterward.

So what causes this? That’s not my job (smile). My job is to identify turning points in the markets, in collective psychology, in the mundane direction of world politics by means of my understanding of astrology.

Perhaps it pertains to the massive change of direction that I suspect will take place in American (U.S.) politics, starting with the next election. For one thing, I think there is reason to suspect the party in office will not return. Not unless they can convince the American middle class and common worker that they can provide best for them. With Saturn in Virgo, I think the working class will determine the next authority in office of presidency. It will not be determined on the basis of national security, as was the case when Saturn was in Cancer (2004), even though that card is surely to be played again while Saturn is still in a hard aspect to a further out planet (Uranus in this case).

Secondly, let’s be hypothetical and assume that a Democrat is the next U.S.A. president. And let’s take it one step further and assume it is Hillary Clinton (for the moment, she leads). Everyone thinks she will be a president like her husband, Bill – who Alan Greenburg referred to as the best president the Republicans have elected in the last several years. But Hillary Clinton as president is no Bill Clinton as President. I believe she will be a lot more like Jimmy Carter – a hard-nosed worker who wanted to do as much as possible for the “common man,” the middle class, and for world peace. Never mind that Hillary Clinton may be supported by more corporate monies and/or special interests groups than any candidate ever in history. The question is what will she do as President? As a Scorpio, you know she will make changes. She will fire people who have been in certain positions for a long time. She will bring to an end various departments that she sees as no longer relevant to her goals (which are our goals, right? I mean, she will take a census on everything to justify her actions). And if there is a financial (or currency) crisis, one of those areas affected may be the Federal Reserve Board, which will find transiting Pluto moving over its Sun, and in opposition to its natal Pluto (0-1 of Capricorn and Cancer respectively, 2008-2010). When Pluto is involved, things to which it pertains come to an end. They are oftentimes terminated, or at least transformed significantly from their present incarnation. In the case of an entity’s Sun, it means its leader. In the case of its own natal Pluto, it may be the end of the entity itself – at least as it has been known to be. And it is interesting that at the same time Pluto hits this Sun-Pluto opposition in the natal chart of the FRB (born Dec 23, 1913), the transit of Uranus will square FED Chairman Bernanke’s Sun (21 Sagittarius), square his natal Jupiter (21 Gemini), and conjunct his natal Moon (around 21 Pisces). By the end of 2008 and into 2009, Saturn will go through 21 Virgo, thus completing the grand square to the FED chair’s chart. His birth data and its source were provided in previous columns.

If you are looking for a reason why the markets may collapse in the not-so-distant future, I would look in this direction, for these are the key players in the cosmic drama that is unfolding 2008-2010.