Astrology: Ray Merriman - MMA Weekly Stock Report

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Last week we posted a copy of our special market alert issued January 10 to all MMA subscribers, in place of this normal free weekly report. Since many of you may have missed that, we will leave it up for another week on our web site at www.mmacycles.com.

This prior week was significant for many reasons. But most important, perhaps, was the inauguration of Barack Obama as the new USA President. His official duties began at 12:00 PM, January 20, 2009, Washington, DC. I am not exactly sure why, but he apparently held another inauguration at 7:35 PM, on January 21, 2009, Washington DC. Astrologers may have been pleased with the “elected” date of second inauguration, for the moon moved from its “void of course” position at 29 degrees of Scorpio on January 20, into the middle of Sagittarius on the evening of January 21. However, the new chart was ‘elected” when the Ascendant was at 0 degrees of Virgo, which creates another set of challenges to Mundane Astrologers, since the ruling planet would then be Mercury, and Mercury is in retrograde motion. But regardless of which chart is correct, Obama perhaps performed the most eloquent dismissal of the prior president and his policies of the past 8 years that one will ever witness from an incoming president. It was a textbook lesson on how to give thanks graciously for something that apparently conflicted with his (and many Americans) deepest values.

Immediately following his inauguration, stock markets around the world sold off sharply, consistent with our special stock market alert sent out January 10. But now we are in the geocosmic critical reversal zone of January 23, +/- 3 trading days, with the second passage of the 45-year Saturn-Uranus opposition cycle to follow in the first week of February.

As we enter this reversal zone, we see many global equity indices making new lows for this new year. So far these are holding above the multi-year lows of October or November, which keeps alive hopes for the bulls. In other markets, Crude Oil dropped to a low of 32.70 on Tuesday, re-testing its 32.40 low of December 19 for a double bottom bullish formation. By Friday, it was as high as 47.00, a gain of over 43% in just 3 trading days. Does this sound like Jupiter, Neptune, and Uranus in mutual reception? The answer is yes, as both Jupiter and Neptune rule crude oil, and Uranus represents very sharp price swings in very short periods of time. Gold and Silver also rallied strongly last week, to their highest levels of this new year, with Gold exceeding 900.00 and Silver 1200 during the day on Friday.

Mercury remains retrograde through February 1. In fact, the last two weeks represent what may be considered the “frustration” part of the Mercury retrograde zone, when confusion and uncertainty about financial markets are at their height. This usually coincides with conflicting economic date reports, or messages from world political leaders. This has a tendency to cause traders to vacillate back and forth between bullish and bearish sentiment.

Still this is a most important geocosmic period for many other reasons as well. For one, the Sun is conjunct Jupiter on Saturday, January 24. For another, there is a solar eclipse on Monday, January 26. Many Financial Astrologers give great importance to both of these signatures, but more relevant to market reversals is the translation of Venus to the developing Cardinal Climax planets of Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto. These three planets are moving towards an 80-90 year T-square configuration with one another. From January 22 through February 5, Venus will first conjunct Uranus (January 22), then form an opposition to Saturn (January 24), and finally a square to Pluto (February 5). As demonstrated in “The Ultimate Book on Stock Market Timing Volume 3: Geocosmic Correlations to Trading Cycles,” the Venus-Uranus conjunction and Venus-Saturn opposition are both “Level One” (strongest) types of signatures. So is Venus square Pluto, but the one we are most interested in right now is Venus in opposition to Saturn, because any market that is declining into a hard aspect to Saturn is oftentimes a candidate to make a low and reverse back upwards. Stocks and currencies are related to Venus, and both of these markets are making lows (European currencies against the U.S. Dollar are making lows). Thus these markets either reverse in this time band, or else they break down and enter a “panic” phase, which has been the pattern with these translation periods in about 80% of cases in the past year. That is also the downside possibility of the Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune mutual reception. It is both very optimistic and bullish, or it is exaggeration that is given towards hysteria and panic.

The second of five Saturn-Uranus oppositions is coming up February 5. The first of these five passages occurred on Election Day, November 4, which was time that many stock indices around the world made their last “highest price.” That is, markets have been considerably lower since that crest. In fact, they sold off immediately afterwards to lows on November 21, as the fifth passage of the trine between Jupiter and Saturn took place (note: not all trines correlate with crests, as some in Financial Astrology would want to believe).

So what will the second passage of this 45-year planetary cycle produce? Will it be a high, as it was on November 4? Or will it be a low? Or neither? Will it be the end of a horrendous sell-off, or the beginning of one, as Saturn-Uranus in opposition can represent the dynamic of a serious crisis? For sure, no one really knows the answer to these questions just yet, but there are several things to keep in mind. First, we are not out of the woods yet where the possibility of another episode of financial crisis is concerned. Saturn won’t finish its opposition passages to Uranus until July 26, 2010.

But even shorter-term, we have to prepare for the period coming up in the first half of March when two additional geocosmic events unfold. The first is the full moon of the week beginning March 9. This full moon falls on the Saturn-Uranus opposition, just as it did September 15, 2008. That is the date that the financial community officially (in my view) entered its state of economic crisis, following the “reassurance speech” by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson that the USA economy and banking system were sound and resilient. Within hours, several banks and financial institutions collapsed, and he was forced to demand that Congress immediately pass an economic bailout package for other troubled banks. Second, Venus (currencies, stocks, and interest rates) will turn retrograde around that same time (Friday, March 6). This geocosmic event has one of the highest correlations to impressive reversals in equity markets, according to the Stock Market Timing studies mentioned above, given an orb of 10 trading days.

No, we are not out of the woods yet, despite the approaching Jupiter-Neptune conjunction in Aquarius, which will be at its peak May through July 2009. Before that dream-like fairy tale starts to manifest, we have the reality of some serious experiences still ahead. The good news is that there will likely be some exceptional trading opportunities in the next few weeks. The not-so-good news is that these opportunities may be generated by some rather disturbing and unexpected economic, geopolitical, and even military-related events. Welcome to the White House, Mr. Obama. The prayers of sane people all over the world are with you as you lead us into this new era.

If you are an active short-term trader, you may be interested in our Weekly or even Daily Market reports with short-term trading recommendations. It is the only way I keep in touch with traders on a daily or even weekly basis. These reports give in-depth analysis of the DJIA, S&P and NASDAQ futures, Euro currency (cash and futures), Swiss Franc, Dollar/Yen cash and Yen futures, T-Notes, Corn, Soybeans, Wheat, Gold and Silver. The daily reports cover all stock indices listed above, as well as futures in Euro, T-Notes, Soybeans, Gold and Silver. Subscription to the daily report also includes the weekly report. For more information, go to http://www.mmacycles.com/services, or call our offices at 1-248-626-3034. In the words of one of our subscribers: “I recently subscribed to your weekly report and am finding it to be excellent and a very useful companion to the MMA Cycles Report. I can't imagine now managing my investments without them.”

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For those of you unable to attend our first “Forecast for 2009” speech (via the web) on Saturday, December 13, please know that you can order a CD audio recording of this presentation at this time. The cost is $45.00 plus postage.

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Disclaimer and statement of purpose:

Disclaimer and statement of purpose: The purpose of this column is not to predict the future movement of various financial markets. However, that is the purpose of the MMA (Merriman Market Analyst) subscription services. This column is not a subscription service. It is a free service, except in those cases where a fee may be assessed to cover the cost of translating this column from English into a non-English language. This weekly report is written with the intent to educate the reader on the relationship between astrological factors and collective human activities as they are happening. In this regard, this report will oftentimes report what happened in various stock and financial markets throughout the world in the past week, and discuss that movement in light of the geocosmic signatures that were in effect. It will then identify the geocosmic factors that will be in effect in the next week, or even month, or even years, and the author’s understanding of how these signatures will likely affect human activity in the times to come. The author (Merriman) will do this from a perspective of a cycle’s analyst looking at the military, political, economic, and even financial markets of the world. It is possible that some forecasts will be made based on these factors. However, the primary goal is to both educate and alert the reader as to the psychological climate we are in, from an astrological perspective. The hope is that it will help the reader understand these psychological dynamics that underlie (or coincide with) the news events and hence financial markets of the day.

No guarantee as to the accuracy of this report is being made here. Any decisions in financial markets are solely the responsibility of the reader, and neither the author nor the publishers assume any responsibility at all for those individual decisions. Reader should understand that futures and options trading are considered high risk.