Review and Preview

     Given my schedule in Europe, I don’t have the luxury of waiting for markets to close for the week and then writing my column. The last markets I track are the CME Gold and Silver. With their 5:15 PM, EST close, it equates to 11:15 PM here in Europe. It’s too late to write a brilliant report on markets then.

    So instead, you will read more about my personal experiences when I am overseas, through the eyes and mental processes of a Financial Astrologer – or maybe just an astrologer taking stock of his experiences through these rare and unusual planetary energies. I don’t really know why I am sharing more of myself, my life, and my inner thoughts than before. Perhaps it has to do with progressed Mercury commencing its retrograde motion in Pisces in my chart for the next 19 years. You are going to learn more about how astrology works in these columns than before, and especially during those weeks when I travel, for these reports will come out earlier than when I am stateside.

Short-Term Geocosmics

    There are two major geocosmic signatures arising in the next ten days which could be consequential. The first is the Sun entering a T-square formation with the Jupiter-Saturn opposition (January 19-22). The second is Mars turning retrograde in Virgo (January 24 through April 14).

    The Jupiter-Saturn opposition (add T-square from the Sun) is unusual because it is not quite exact. It is one degree away from exactness, and it happens as Saturn is in the last degree of Libra and Jupiter the first degree of Taurus, so they aren’t even in opposite signs. This is known as an “out-of-sign” opposition. At the same time, the Sun is moving from 29 degrees of Capricorn to 0 degrees of Aquarius. When the planets are in last and first degrees of signs, it usually means “changing conditions.” Something is changing related to Jupiter (growth, optimism, and expansion) and Saturn (contraction and fear). Together these two planes pertain to a “judgment.” Could it be that some country gets a credit downgrade and fears of a global meltdown arise again? Or does it have something to do with the more mundane field of law? One side wants to expand, the other wants to contract, and with the Sun right in the middle, the result may be paralysis (i.e., gridlock). This is not new, but yet something is different about this case because something will probably happen. Something gets done, or changed.

On the surface, it would seem that a law could be passed or a policy started that might restrict freedom, take away certain liberties and assumed rights. But it could be done quietly and maybe without even a vote. Yet a few weeks or months afterwards, people begin to realize what happened when they weren’t paying attention to what was taking place today. It’s like a shadow growing ever larger over the landscape. It’s the same landscape, but it looks a little different, a little less clear and brilliant in the shade than when it is done in the open. Jupiter and Saturn in opposition is big in the world of Mundane Astrology.  In financial markets, such a combination could result in a turn in the market, usually from a peak to a downward projectory. Just look at the past few times these two giants on our solar system were in opposition (last March, May and August 2010, and summer of 1990).

    Mars turning retrograde is also interesting because it often coincides with war threats. This may be even more the case now that Uranus is in Aries, natural home to Mars, god of war. But Mars is in Virgo, so the threats may be also related to work issues and a perceived lack of economic opportunities. This is in effect through April 14, so we may see worker strikes taking place that could cripple the distribution of needed goods throughout the world. Maybe Iran does close the Straits of Hormuz, for Virgo is opposite Pisces, which rules crude oil.

    The bottom line is that these two signatures indicate a change of collective psychology and also political direction. And this can directly cause a sudden change of trend in many financial markets. It can abort the positive technical environment that had been building, give or take two weeks. On top of that, Jupiter is in the last stages of its 0-7° Taurus passage, a placement that historically coincides with long-term cycle crests (October 7, 2011-March 7, 2012).

Longer-Term Thoughts

    For this week, and most weeks when I travel, I will just have a chat with you about Astrology and the times we live in. You may deduce long-term market consequences from these thoughts, because I will try to describe the nature of reality we collectively experience (a very large task, but then again, I do have Mercury in Sagittarius, sign of “large thoughts”).

For me, these days reflect the life of a trader and the life of a trading analyst/advisor. It’s the corresponding experiential reality of transiting Uranus in Aries, hitting in hard aspect to one’s (my) Sun and Mars in Capricorn. I am all of that, and quite a few of you are some of that, because many of you have planets in the first 7-8 degrees of cardinal signs, which is where my own natal Sun and Mars are located. If you don’t have the Sun there, chances are you have another planet, lunar node, or angle there. A lot of you are undergoing the same cosmic initiation and/or transformation I am experiencing. The only difference may the degree of awareness – consciousness - that this happening. But if I can put it in words, you will recognize it. That is now one of my roles as writer of this column, especially when I travel.

One thing we are discovering as we rocket through this Cardinal Climax period of 2008-2015 is that we are all connected. That is Uranus too – the internet, the “Digital  Age,” that we have been living out over the past 20-30 years, but are just recently moving into hyper speed with it. We are conversing with the world.

What is it? What is Uranus? Why is it that we can never quite describe it, except to say that “it’s different this time” (not to be confused with the recent economic book of the same title, which is well worth reading)? It’s different because we, as individuals, are connected to one another more than ever before. And because of that, more of us on this planet want this idea – this experience, this elusive dream - of freedom. We want economic freedom and we want the social freedom of escaping isolation and loneliness. There is a shift of power in the world taking place today back to the individual, and this does not bode well for governments that are trying to grow their power over the individual. But the individual in all of us, all across this planet, is breaking out. It is a force that cannot be stopped, and those that try to halt it will be crushed by the masses, not the other way around as they – those who repress - might think.

But let’s get back to me (I told you Uranus in Aries squares my Sun now), because I can only relate what I am going through and how different it is, yet how consistent this inconsistency is with what we know we don’t know about Uranus. We know that Uranus represents extremes. It can break through any boundary, just as it breaks through multiple support and resistance levels in financial markets in an eye blink. Just like that – a crash or a lightning bolt – we are in a new world, a different reality, because we broke through to the extremes – and even beyond them. And we ask in wonderment: “Where are we now? Where are we going next?”

So for this trader/analyst/advisor, the extremes have been personally experienced in markets these past couple of weeks.  And I suspect many of you experienced that too. On the one extreme was this call that I recently made in Gold and Silver via “special alert” notices sent to subscribers on December 28-29. I called the bottom about as close as any analyst has ever called a bottom, time-wise (within the half hour). Now many of you have an idea what an adrenaline rush this is for a trader. Within two weeks, Gold has been up nearly $140 and Silver over 17%, from the time of that alert to the high so far as of late this past week. Welcome to my world these past two weeks, where only the sky is the limit.

And welcome to the other side of my world too if you are a stock trader, which is a little more Plutonian.  Shortly after my perfectly wonderful and ego-satisfying “Uranus square Sun” experience in Gold kicked in, the stock market soared to a new cycle high, which was exactly the opposite of what I expected to happen past the first day of this year. Why is it with Pluto you can never get a break, or you can never bask in the sunshine for more than a minute before storm clouds start to gather? The stock market didn’t turn before the calendar did. On the plus side, our subscribers caught most of the move up from late November through December. But we bailed too soon, and went short too soon, although maybe it is still too soon to assume that.

For me, life is easier when I am right with modest gains in both those markets at the same time, instead of huge gains in one and not-so-small paper losses in the other. I don’t like extremes. I am a Capricorn, and the instructions for our life are: they like their boundaries respected. Yet… there is something electric and magical about those times when you do exceed those boundaries, when you allow yourself to be taken to those extremes and beyond.

We are all experiencing “first time-like” things now, things that never happened to us before. And they are not just "little things," but rather life transformative shifts in direction. Our path is being altered, or for some, being created in a new way by new choices being made. That’s the nature of Uranus going into Aries. And as a human community, we are about to experience many more things for the first time in 2012, and lasting into 2015. Uranus in Aries is squaring Pluto. The energy, the force, the new realities, are already unfolding.

And here’s the thing that concerns me about … me, and how I see it all coming down. What if it doesn’t go as expected, which is to say, what if it doesn’t crash and burn for a little window of time? What if there are no earthquakes and tsunamis and no more overthrows of repressive world leaders? What if the world economies don’t collapse and the Euro Union doesn’t break up or transform in some way? What if the USA election 2012 is peaceful and civil and not negative with accusations of the other side of being the agent of destruction on the eve of destruction in a nation that seems to be self-destructing as it possibly enters its phase of decline? What if markets don’t fall hard this year, and instead rally to new all-time highs amidst an economy that shows greater job growth and falling unemployment? What if? These are things that most of us don’t expect will happen. But it’s the Uranus-Pluto square, and these are the themes – the events - that have happened historically under this configuration (i.e. 1931-1934, 1876-1878). What if this time THAT was different, and instead of insanity, hysteria, and fear, it was instead smooth and blissful? That would be unexpected, wouldn’t it? That would be Uranus too, wouldn’t it?

Well… if that happened this way, or if we believe it will happen that way, then we must all be experiencing Neptune in Pisces. If you are an astrologer, you know this is an important 14-year transit that is about to begin as well on February 3. You know Neptune rules Pisces, so it will be strong – as strong as Neptune can be in Pisces (an oxymoron…Neptune’s strength is in its gentleness, its quest for peace). This should be interesting with Uranus in Aries at the same time, whose quest is for combat and winning in competition – or by any means possible, even ruthless ones. That is at the forefront too until 2018.

But I keep coming back to Uranus square Pluto. That is part of Pluto’s charm in Capricorn: it just keeps coming back, over and over again, until it gets corrected or healed. Here, we are talking about the world debt and how it could literally explode (Uranus-Pluto = explosive debt; Pluto in Capricorn = consequences of past behavior; Saturn in Scorpio 2012-2015, = the “Day of Reckoning”).

What is it about Uranus and Pluto that we are going through together now? I don’t know. None of us do, because we’ve never been through something quite like this. We can feel it, we experience it, we see it happening all around us and all over the world. We know NOW, and we know the future is going to be exciting and probably dramatic, but the form it will take? It’s shape-shifting. As I look at this new world with these new eyes, it’s all shape-shifting, and I know on some level, that’s true for most of you.

I want to thank so many of you for your wonderful letters of encouragement these past six weeks. You are amazing. My life is amazing because of people like you. I will continue to write and hopefully guide wisely (or at least entertainingly), as long as I can. I suspect I will continue on for at least 19 more years. And I expect these to be my most exciting and illuminating 19 years of this lifetime. Yours too, I hope. I look forward to seeing many of you in Amsterdam next weekend.