Merriman Market Analyst

Review and Preview

A lot has happened since our last report two weeks ago. Stock markets around the world went into a free fall as the U.S. markets were closed on the Martin Luther King holiday of January 21. The crash continued when the U.S. markets opened up the next day, forcing the Federal Reserve Board to make a surprise three-quarters percent interest rate cut in the Fed Funds rate. This was followed by another half-point when they met this past Wednesday. It was exactly what the market needed, supporting our position that our “Fire Sign” heroes Bernanke and Paulsen would do whatever is necessary to prevent a recession on their watch. Fed Chair Ben Bernanke is a Sagittarian, and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulsen is a Sagittarian, both fire signs. And if there is one thing we know about fire signs, it is that they don’t like to wait. They are men of action, and they seek the glory that comes from acting quickly and decisively. But of course, sometimes they fall into troubles for acting too quickly, and not having the patience to see prior actions unfold in their “proper” time. For fire signs, the “proper” time may take too long for their comfort. They can get easily restless. This tendency to act hastily and with exaggeration may become a problem after this year’s election. Right now, it was welcomed, and the markets rewarded their decisiveness with strong rallies, thereby abruptly halting the panic that was starting to build.

Most stock markets made a spike low the prior week, on January 22 and 23. For many of the world indices, that trough represented a greater than 20% decline from the highs that preceded it, making it the steepest decline since the 4-year bottoms of October 2002 or March-April 2003, depending on which part of the world you look at. Many financial astrologers were puzzled as to why a market would bottom as Jupiter formed a favorable trine to Saturn at the time of the low. But as stated many times before in this column, the market doesn’t always judge trines to be crests or squares to be troughs. Trines are favorable, so if the news was mostly negative going into a trine, it would coincide with a bottom or trough, and then the news would be favorable, leading to rally off that low. In this case, the news was favorable. The FRB lowered interest rates, not once, but twice.

Still the market struggled. It wasn’t straight up. Most markets made an initial top last Friday, January 25, and then sold off quickly into Monday. They then rallied again, only to fall somewhat sharply again into Thursday, back to the lows of Monday (more than 2.5% each time). Then they took off again late Thursday through Friday, February 1, as the Venus-Jupiter conjunction unfolded. Why all the whip saws, and swinging back and forth? Financial astrology would suggest it was due to Mercury turning retrograde on Monday, January 28, and Mars turning direct on January 30. Mercury and Mars highlighted together correlates with volatility. Mercury retrograde coincides with periods when there is a tendency towards many conflicting messages, from politicians as well as economic data and pundits. We can expect these swings to continue until Mercury turns direct on February 18-19. However, the further we get into Mercury retrograde, the less amplitude in the daily price swings, unless Uranus or Mars-Jupiter signatures are unfolding too.

In other markets, Gold and Silver were the stellar performers until late Friday. Gold, made another new all-time high early Friday, approaching 950.00. Silver soared to its highest level since 1980, trading above $17.00. However both sold off pretty hard by Friday’s close, with Gold making its weekly low that quickly. This is typical Moon in Sagittarius stuff, which was in effect on Friday. The Euro also tested its all-time on Friday, and the Swiss Franc made an all-time high then. But by the close, both were off sharply. Crude Oil continues to languor below 90.00, after passing out critical 100.00 mark earlier in January. For two years we had forecasted Crude would hit 100.00 by spring 2008, and now we’ve done it. But is that the top? If so, look for 20.00-50.00 oil within 1-3 years. This forecast is based on the history of Uranus transiting Pisces. Stock sectors ruled by the sign Uranus is in tend to “blow-off” to new all-time highs while in the middle degrees of that sign, Then they lose 50-90% of their value by the time it reaches the end of that same sign.

Short-Term Geocosmics

The major geocosmic signature this week is the partial solar eclipse on Wednesday, February 6. By itself I am doubtful that this will do that much to the markets. Eclipses seem only important as significant cycle lows or highs when they make aspects to other major planets at the same time, in my experience.

Our next major cluster of geocosmic signatures doesn’t come up until the following week, starting with the Sun-Neptune conjunction of February 10. That’s a big one, much more important than Financial Astrologers would think. It has a 75% correlation to primary or greater cycles within 9 trading days.

Longer-Term Thoughts

Our previous suggestion that one of the winners of the New Hampshire presidential primary would probably be the next president of the United States appears to be coming true. John McCain won the Republican side of that primary, and Hillary Clinton the Democratic. Both are now favored to win “Super Tuesday’s” primaries. Whoever is ahead after Super Tuesday will probably their party’s nominee. As stated back at the time of the Iowa primary, and just before the New Hampshire one on January 8, “This coming week will also feature a new moon at 17 degrees of Capricorn on Tuesday (January 8). This is where transiting Jupiter will be on Election Day, November 4, 2008. In fact, the Moon will also return to this position at the start of Election Day too (a lunar return to this new moon). Any candidate who gains momentum during this period has a good chance of being on the ballot in November. Based on this principle, it would seem that New Hampshire (and other primaries taking place prior to January 22) may be more reflective of what to expect in November than Iowa was this past week – unless of course, these primaries mirror the Iowa results. But I wouldn’t rest on those results if I were Obama or Huckabee.”

The Moon on Super Tuesday, February 5, will again be in Capricorn as the voting starts, same as it will on Election Day. So once again, it seems to mirror what we might expect on Election Day itself. I was asked in Zurich last week, who I thought might be the next president. I replied that it would probably be McCain or Clinton. But if Rudy Giuliani could make it through, he would have the best chance of beating Hillary. But after listening to McCain the past few days, I am not so sure that Hillary will beat him. As mentioned in the Forecast Book, the winner will likely be the candidate with who represents law and order the strongest, for that is what the Moon in Capricorn is about on a collective emotional “need” level. I thought Hillary might be stronger here than McCain (Scorpio versus Virgo). But the Capricorn Moon also represents “age” and “experience,” and for that McCain gets the edge. And where is Obama in all of this? His support is the youth. If the youth turn out, he still has a chance, for on Election Day, Saturn (age and establishment) is opposite Uranus (youth). And where is Mitt Romney in all of this? He has Mars in Pisces, and there has never been a U.S. President with Mars in Pisces. Most have had Mars in Leo, which is the case with both Hillary and McCain, per the studies of Michael O’Reilly in his book called “Political Astrology.” Obama has Mars in Virgo, like current President George W. Bush. However, Mars in Pisces is a psychological dynamic very much like Mars in aspect to Neptune. Several USA Presidents have had Mars-Neptune aspects (like Bill Clinton), as does the U.S.A. chart itself. So we can’t count Romney out just yet.

Geez… I sound like Mercury retrograde with all these conflicting signatures. Don’t worry. We will know soon enough, and the principles of astrology are working just fine in terms of this election, and the financial markets.