Review and Preview

    This is a crazy world and a crazy time we live in.

    On Thursday, after USA markets closed, the S&P ratings agency downgraded Spain’s credit rating for the second time this year. It is, of course, completely consistent with the forthcoming Uranus-Pluto waxing square aspect that makes its first of seven passages on June 24, 2012. They are close enough to this aspect now to have an influence, and have been since late July 2011 when the USA’s own Triple AAA credit rating was downgraded a notch for the first time ever. So how did stock markets around the world react? Well, at first they sold off modestly. But then many – including the USA – continued to rally to new multi-week highs. Likewise the USA Treasuries continued to rally near their all-time highs. Go figure.

    Well, wait minute. Maybe you don’t have to go figure. Maybe it won’t do any good to go figure, because when Uranus is dominant, no amount of logic or rational thought will work. If anything, Uranus tends to be illogical and irrational, albeit very innovative and unconventional. It pertains to the unexpected, and it probably has more to do with “contrary thought and behavior” than any other planetary dynamic. We are going to see a lot of that in the next three years. Come to think of it, we have already seen a lot of that since 2008 when Uranus first came into opposition to Saturn, setting off the 2008-2015 Cardinal Climax. This is just the next layer of this ongoing Twilight Zone saga.

    I think it is quite safe to say there will be more downgrades of various nations’ credit ratings in the next three years. Maybe equity and Treasury markets will continue to rally on such great news. But I wouldn’t bet on it. More likely than not, in my opinion, is that eventually these downgrades will have a chilling effect on many financial markets. After all, the same thing happened in 1873-1878, which was the longest economic depression in the USA history, and the last time Uranus was in a waxing square with Pluto. That is, the USA stock market was making all-time highs, and staying quite close to those highs until 1876, when the Uranus-Pluto square commenced its first exact passage. The country was in an economic depression but the stock market was strong. In the next two years, however, as the Uranus-Pluto square was fully in force, the stock market finally collapsed. Irrationality and illogic finally caved in to another Uranus dynamic: panic and loss of control. It doesn’t have to be negative, but when it is, that is how it often materializes. Things are just very different, and we have to learn to adjust quickly.

    Speaking of illogic and irrationality, many of the stock markets of the world were under pressure for the first half of last week. On Wednesday, April 25, The NASDAQ Composite was at its lowest level since March 8, in anticipation of a poor earnings report about to be released by Apple. But in typical Uranus fashion, Apple’s earnings were anything but poor. They were spectacular and stock indices all around the world shot up sharply. By Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had reached 13,266, only 31 points off its three-year high of 13,297 achieved on April 2. In Europe, the German DAX and Netherlands AEX indices were at their lowest levels since December-January on Monday, April 23. But that was not the case in the Zurich SMI or London FTSE. All of these markets rallied nicely into Friday, setting up an excellent case of intermarket bullish divergence signals, a condition which also exists in the USA as well as Asia and the Pacific Rim. The biggest losers of last week were in Argentina and Moscow, whose stock indices continued to plunge all week. In Argentina, the Merval index is about to break below its lows of October 4.

    Gold and Silver had an interesting week too. Both were depressed into mid-week. Silver fell to 2992, its lowest level since January. Gold fell to 1623.60, which was above its recent low on our April 4 critical reversal date at 1613. Thus this was another case of intermarket bullish divergence, and both metals rose smartly into the end of the week, suggesting that their primary cycle lows may be in. There are a couple of resistance areas that have to be surpassed to confirm this bias, but we will cover those in our weekly subscription reports due out tomorrow.

Short-Term Geocosmics

    As discussed last week, there are no outstanding geocosmic signatures on the horizon until Venus turns retrograde on May 15. We expect all financial markets to either go sideways in a congestion range, or trend gradually in one direction from now until then. In the meantime, we will trade off the highest weighted value solar-lunar reversal zones, as posted every day for Stock indices and Silver on our web site at www.mmacycles.com.

Longer-Term Thoughts and Another Announcement

    Last week I announced that I will be starting a new direction in life in the next year, involving a mentor-apprenticeship program on Financial Market Timing and Analysis, according to the unique methodology I have developed over the past 30+ years. I didn’t expect any response yet, as I am still developing the concept. But… I got a huge response! I didn’t know there was such an interest out there. I mean, I knew there was interest, but the response I received in the last week was overwhelming and humbling.

    The project is called OLMTA – the “On-Line Market Timing Academy” – which is the name of the domain I purchased in 1993 and have kept all along, knowing that someday I would transition into this phase of my life. The point has come now where I realize that a lot of people know a little bit about many of the research studies I have published and the trading models I have formulated, but the integration of all of these studies and models needs to be taught to those who are as passionate about this study as I am - and want to see it continued well into the future after my days as an active market analyst are completed (say, about 10 years from now). Don’t worry: I will still research and write books until I am done with this body. But, I have to care for this temple that I call my body, which means I will have to gradually slow down, or it won’t serve these purposes that much longer. Mortality is a hard issue for me to fathom right now, and I know the key is to keep myself healthy, but when Pluto aspects so many of one’s natal planets as it has mine over the past 4 years… well, you begin to realize what you have to do if you wish to look back and say “This lifetime was a truly remarkable one.” For me, it has been already. But there is much more that I would still like to do.

    In any event, OLMTA is being planned for launch in early 2013. Prior to that, I would like to have an introductory weekend workshop for traders and investors (and anyone else) who know very little about astrology, to introduce would-be apprentices to the ephemerides (tables of planetary positions) in order to know where planets are at any given moment; what they mean and how they used to determine a geocosmic critical reversal date, which is one of the cornerstones of financial market timing. In a sense, this would be a beginning course on Astrology, as it applies to financial markets. And then next year I would like to commence the actual OLMTA curriculum, which will involve 48 classes of 90 minutes each, spaced out in 8 separate three-day weekends over a two-year period, in the months of March, May, July and September 2013 and then again in 2014. The ten apprentices (minimum) will be those who are able to attend the classes and after-class discussions in person, although the classes themselves will be given via a webcast to others who wish to learn in a non-apprentice role.

    This is the projected plan for now. Future announcements on the OLMTA project will be uploaded onto our web site at www.mmacycles.com, and via email to those who have expressed an interest. However, like all plans made under the dominance of Uranus and Pluto in one’s chart, changes or modifications could happen as a result of events that I cannot yet foresee. Speaking of which… this Uranus-Pluto waxing square will take place at 6 - 15° of cardinal signs. In prior columns, I have discussed how this will possibly transform the lives of anyone who has natal planets there. Of course, all people born in the first half of cardinal signs qualify, which is about 15% of the world. You have recently gone through Uranus and Pluto themes in the past 4 years, or you are about to.

    But there are also generations of people who will be affected, such as the baby boomers who have natal Neptune and/or Uranus at 6-15° of Libra or Cancer respectively. That whole generation, from the mid-1940’s through the mid-1950’s, is powerfully affected by this dramatic transit. But there are other large groups of people who were born with Uranus or Pluto in 6-15° of Capricorn (January 1987-November 1992), Pluto in 6-15° Libra (November 1973-September 1978) or Uranus in 6-15° Libra (October 1969-August 1972). In other words, this Uranus-Pluto square is going to have generational as well as personal and individual manifestations. This debt explosion (Uranus-Pluto) is having huge consequences to huge numbers of people worldwide who are now being forced to readjust their future plans in ways they never prepared for.

    In a very real sense, this is an evolutionary challenge for all of Humankind. It will likely not only transform the way we handle money and in the future expect our leaders to manage the monies of our nations, but it will also alter the expectations and demands we make upon those leaders in other ways. Power is undergoing a transformation, from the leaders of government, banking, and business into the hands of the individual - the “people” – who are undergoing an evolutionary drive to connect with one another. And since money and power are virtually the same thing in today’s world, well… you can understand this movement to redistribute wealth by many of today’s political leaders. It taps into a popular but raw collective nerve. And in typical Uranus-Pluto symbolism, it is like setting a match to a stick of dynamite. We will discuss the dangers and opportunities this presents in future columns as we head into the 2012 Presidential Elections, both in the USA and France. Astrologically, 2012-2020 is like 1776-1786 all over again.