This weekend's Crimea vote isn't "it"

Randall Ashbourne, an associate of Astrological Investing, posts a weekly market report on his web site, theidiotandthemoon.com The following is this weekend's Eye of RA report: Week beginning March 17, 2014 

market direction depends on Western political reaction

According to the headlines this week, the direction of major Western stock markets now depends on how Crimea votes this weekend.

In truth, the market direction really depends on the Western political reaction to an outcome which is a foregone conclusion.

The reaction is eminently predictable, as well. Forked tongues will speak incessantly and loudly.

The current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania will make noises about democracy and the right of all the people of Ukraine to have a voice ... something he is never likely to grant to all the population of Cuba about the fate of the eastern end of that island.

The current resident of 10 Downing will repeat the script ... ignoring his country's long refusal to allow a free vote of all residents of that large island to the left about what happens with its northern provinces.

Anyway, this week won't see the main game. Those of you who have Forecast 2014 might want to have another look at the graphic on Page 6. As I said there: "And the danger of military conflicts expands as diplomatic solutions fail."

The graphic shows two timeframes "when the issues are likely to become unavoidably obvious". The first was the February/March changeover ... and the next is still several weeks away.

In the meantime, we need to concern ourselves with the charts. I think we'll chat a little more this weekend about the Bi-BBs, since once again they've proven to be very useful in giving us a warning about where markets were headed.

Last weekend, we looked at those charts and their implications for a fast move in gold ... and a stall or correction starting on Wall Street.

Firstly, to the weekly Bi-BB chart for Pollyanna, the SP500. We had discussed how the Bollinger Bands were beginning to tighten, which almost invariably precedes a fast move, and how a breaking of the outer bands almost always stalls a trend or provokes a change in trend direction.

I circled previous examples of an upper band break and pointed out how even the little ones caused a reaction ... and right on cue, it happened again.

So far, price has retreated from one weekly Saturn cluster down to another. Big Bird, the 50CCI, has dived rather deeply. This is a fairly strong indication we could now be in an intermediate decline and will probably need a divergence reading in the oscillator before a new rally can be sustained.

The next chart shows only the primary planetary lines currently having an impact on the 500. We had a false break of the long-range Pluto line priced at 1876, confirming that it is a very strong resistance level for the index. Given the unhappy state of the Big Bird, it's likely the index will need to drop to one of the lower primary price levels shown below.

For my home market readers, I'll show the ASX 200's state-of-play within its daily All Planets chart. For the second time in recent weeks, the Saturn barrier now at 5467 proved too difficult to overcome and Auntie went on another dive down to the Saturn at 5330.

What is different this time is that that two of our Canaries - Big Bird (yellow) and Medium Bird (red) - have fallen off their perch. Fast Bird, the green oscillator, is suggesting the potential for a little bounce, but we probably need to see a clear instance of positive divergence forming in the red line before this correction shows firm signs of being finished.

Now let's turn our attention to gold. Last weekend we discussed how price was trying to set itself for a stronger run to the 1363 Pluto level and how the daily Bi-BB chart showed "we're probably about to see a fast move".

And we all know what happened ... the fast move just blew past Pluto.

I've been promising a special report on gold and have been waiting to see the structure of this rally. I will now put that report together and email it out late in the week, or next weekend.

If it's the latter, there probably won't be an Eye of Ra next weekend.

Safe trading - RA

Astrological Investing's associate, Randall Ashbourne, author of the eBook, The Idiot and The Moon, and The Idiot and the Moon, Forecast 2014, writes a free weekly column titled, The Eye of Ra on his web site in  which he explains the potential impact of astrological aspects and the current state of technical conditions. Ashbourne's charts are revealing illustrations of exactly what has occurred in the market and the probability of what to expect.
Important reading:  Randall Ashbourne's The Idiot and The Moon, Forecast 2014
(Disclaimer: This article is not advice or a recommendation to trade stocks; it is merely educational material.)
Copyright: Randall Ashbourne - 2011-2014

Caution: FatBoy squares el Weirdo

Randall Ashbourne, an associate of Astrological Investing, posts a weekly market report on his web site, theidiotandthemoon.com The following is this weekend's Eye of RA report: Week beginning February 24, 2014 

The head honcho of the Old Gods, Jupiter, makes the second exact square with Uranus in the next few days.

Jupiter rules growth, expansion, optimism and Uranus rules technology in general and the stock markets in particular.

Every major astrological aspect between these two almost invariably causes a significant turn in the direction of the markets.

We'll take a look at the history in a moment.

Other stuff is also happening this week. Late in the week, the little mischief-maker, Mercury, goes Direct again as the Sun trines Jupiter (adding extra power to the Jupiter-Uranus square).

It's a weekly version of the Bi-BB charts we've been using for the past few weeks to track the potential for fast moves in short-term trends.

Let's begin, though, with an overview of the big astrological picture. We've chatted at length over the past couple of years about the long-running square between Uranus and Pluto and how these are always present when big, worldwide social shifts are underway.

I won't bore you - or me - by reiterating the symbolism now; other than to say that the "time" when we see actual events occur tends to arrive when that long-running square is triggered by a third planet making an aspect to Uranus or Pluto.

Enter the FatBoy. The chart below is a long-range monthly of Pollyanna, the SP500. Jupiter conjunctions to Uranus are marked with blue bars, trines with green bars, and the squares with red bars.

And all three tend to have a BIG impact. Jupiter lurvs BIG. Study the chart for a few minutes. It's almost uncanny just how often strong Jupiter-Uranus aspects show up as Pollyanna is peaking into long-range tops ... 1968, 1973, 1983, 1987, 2000, 2007. And 2014??

Okay, that's enough of The Spooky Stuff for this week. My Virgo Moon, Miss Prissy, will throw a hissy-fit if I don't pack away the crystal ball and start showing some technical stuff. "Do try to be practical, dear!" So, anyway. For the past few weekends, we've been exploring how to use some lessons from The Technical Section of the book to work out how we should trade some Bi-BB signatures when they make an obvious appearance in the charts. It's all in the Archives. Firstly, let's review last edition's warning about how gold was probably about to take a breather because it had broken the upside band. And ... lo and behold ... that's exactly what we got, at least for a couple of days.

In the longer-term, gold looks to have a lot more rally to come. For the moment, though, I'm just using this as another example of how to apply techniques from The Technical Section to real markets in real time.

Because, while we saw how we could apply these trading rules to both Pollyanna and gold in the daily charts, we are starting to see a similar situation develop now in Pollyanna's weekly Bi-BB chart.

Notice how the bands are starting to pinch together. And remember the first rule ... a rapid tightening of the BBs is a warning that a fast move is approaching. In this case, because it's a weekly chart, the move will probably be of intermediate length, rather than short-term.

I also indicated last weekend that if the rally continued, rather than changing direction at the midpoint of the Mercury Rx phase, the maximum price Pollyanna would hit would be the 1860s.

Since we're in the statistically-positive period between 3Q and New Moon ... and with the Sun due to trine Jupiter ... 1864 remains a valid target for the coming week.

But first, it would have to overcome a Weekly Planets barrier - a double Saturn zone which stopped the two previous attempts to break northwards.

And our Big Bird oscillator is, so far, distinctly unhappy with this testing of the previous Highs!

Also, we've been discussing how the SP500 is currently trapped between rising and falling primary planet lines belonging to the Sun, Mercury and Venus.

Mercury is the two sets of pink lines and Miss Polly played with the falling Mercury line all last week.

Now, let's swap hemispheres for a look at my home market, Australia. The ASX 200 closed the previous week with a break above a Weekly Planets Saturn barrier in the early 5330s ... and is trying to reach the next Saturn/Uranus zone between 5466 and 5504.

We have 3 Canaries in the oscillator panel - 6, 14 and 50 CCIs. The most important is the 50 - Big Bird - which is suggesting one of those prices should be hit.

The green oscillator is the 6 - Fast Bird; and the red is the 14 - Medium Bird. It is already rolling over, suggesting the end of this rally is now very close.

And there's a technical validation for that, too. Below is Auntie's long-range monthly showing Fibonacci Retracement levels; red for the Bull run from the early 2000s into the 2007 top and blue for the Bear collapse into 2009.

It's fairly obvious from even a quick look just how important one or the other of these FiboRx levels have been during the past 5 years.

Short story: Auntie is AT strong resistance and the long-range Big Bird is distinctly unhappy. Now, we have been waiting for EXACTLY this technical condition to start showing up ... higher price Highs with a lower Big Bird high! Negative divergence - on a long-range, monthly chart, warning that the Bull is getting ready to morph into a Bear.

We're not about to wave our arms around and call Abracadabra! just yet. A breakout could rush Auntie up another 400 points (and perhaps worsen the Big Bird divergence in doing it).

But, but ... start putting these technical conditions together with the track record of the FatBoy making aspects with the Weirdo and we see why it's finally nearing time to be very, very cautious.

Safe trading - RA

Astrological Investing's associate, Randall Ashbourne, author of the eBook, The Idiot and The Moon, and The Idiot and the Moon, Forecast 2014, writes a free weekly column titled, The Eye of Ra on his web site in  which he explains the potential impact of astrological aspects and the current state of technical conditions. Ashbourne's charts are revealing illustrations of exactly what has occurred in the market and the probability of what to expect.
Important reading:  Randall Ashbourne's The Idiot and The Moon, Forecast 2014
(Disclaimer: This article is not advice or a recommendation to trade stocks; it is merely educational material.)
Copyright: Randall Ashbourne - 2011-2014

More on Bi-BB trading rules ... and gold

Randall Ashbourne, an associate of Astrological Investing, posts a weekly market report on his web site, theidiotandthemoon.com The following is this weekend's Eye of RA report: Week beginning February 17, 2014 

Less than 8 weeks ago, most of the stock market "experts" were predicting another rip-roaring year ahead.

Then, along came January and they were falling over each other to lament the start of "the big one".

And on Friday, the Nasdaq 100 hit new highs and the SP500 was in gushing Pollyanna mode, finishing the week only a half per cent away from its all-time high in mid-January.

As I've been saying ... the series of retrogrades involving Venus, Mercury and Mars is likely to cause confusion early in 2014.

American markets will be closed on Monday and we need to be aware that traders will return from the long weekend with a potential rethink.

Monday is the midpoint of the current Mercury Retrograde phase and there is at least some danger that trends which began at the start of the phase will go into reverse halfway through the cycle.

Unusually, stocks and gold prices have been running strongly in the same direction.

But the same mechanism we began discussing a couple of weekends ago to look for a potential turn in stocks, is now giving signals that gold's rise is nearing a "breather" stage.

Let's begin, though, with Pollyanna. We've been using the past few weeks as a real-time example of how to use the Bi-BBs when they show a particular pattern.

To reiterate:

1. Tightening bands warn of a very fast move

2. A break of the outer bands stalls the move or forces a countertrend

3. The first move is usually in the wrong direction

So, let's take a look at where we currently stand in relation to those signals. The extreme tightening provoked the fast move down and the breaking of the outside bands first caused a stall and the second break launched a strong countertrend ... indicating that the first move was in the "wrong" direction.

Now, if it were not for the astrological expectation that the midpoint of the Mercury Rx phase can reverse the trend in play, I'd tend to lean here towards Pollyanna gushing to new highs.

We do have a rule that astrological expectations do not over-ride technical conditions. The significance of that is the new, higher peaks in the MACD histogram strongly suggest this isn't going into a sudden reversal.

But, the index is hitting planetary resistance. As we discussed last weekend, the 500 is within a price zone where uptrending and downtrending primary planet lines intersect. If the rally continues when traders return on Tuesday, the maximum price likely to be reached in the week ahead is around the 1860s.

A reversal would probably take the index back to the 1760s over the next couple of weeks.

Gold is now showing some sparkle, indicating it is possible that the correction ended with the double-bottom recorded in late December.

But, is it too much, too fast? If the "normal" rules of Bi-BB trading hold true, then yes. The upside outer band has been broken decisively ... so there's a strong chance that price will stall, or change direction.

The last minor break of the upside band, on January 26, provoked a 5-day pullback.

However, we are now getting strong signals that gold may well be in the early stages of a new Bull leg which will, eventually, take out the old highs.

We last looked at gold in any depth in the January 20 edition, which you can access in the Archives. At the time I indicated I'd prepare a special report on gold. I've been waiting for this sort of move to occur. I'll wait a little longer to see the reaction to make sure that report is as useful as it can be.

However, the potential for future profits in gold itself, and the miners, is starting to look very good. Two things to take special note of in the Sun-Pluto chart below ...

Firstly, our Big Bird oscillator couldn't be happier. The canary is trilling like a lark. And secondly, price has escaped the barrier of a downtrending heliocentric Sun line which put a stop to all attempted breakouts from October 2012 to March 2013.

Everything is looking good - for the intermediate to long-range future. But, we need to see this Sun line breakout tested and confirmed before we can be certain that the final low in gold's correction has been cemented in place.

We're only halfway through the Mercury Retrograde phase ... and a few days after he goes Direct again, Mars goes into a long Rx cycle.
Safe trading - RA

Astrological Investing's associate, Randall Ashbourne, author of the eBook, The Idiot and The Moon, and The Idiot and the Moon, Forecast 2014, writes a free weekly column titled, The Eye of Ra on his web site in  which he explains the potential impact of astrological aspects and the current state of technical conditions. Ashbourne's charts are revealing illustrations of exactly what has occurred in the market and the probability of what to expect.
Important reading:  Randall Ashbourne's The Idiot and The Moon, Forecast 2014
(Disclaimer: This article is not advice or a recommendation to trade stocks; it is merely educational material.)
Copyright: Randall Ashbourne - 2011-2014

Dead cat bounce ... or Mercury mischief?

Randall Ashbourne, an associate of Astrological Investing, posts a weekly market report on his web site, theidiotandthemoon.com The following is this weekend's Eye of RA report: Week beginning February 10, 2014 

 I live in an area prone to bushfires ... wildfires ... and we're in for a bad day.

A few have broken out already and we're not near the forecast top of 42C yet.

And despite the heat, I need to leave the windows open as I write this weekend's report ... so I can hear the district fire alarm if it starts wailing.

I can hear the helicopters and water bombers battling the fires not far away. So, I won't be waffling on at inordinate length in this edition.

Okay, last weekend we touched on the topic of Mercury Retrograde and how, often, a trend starts very close to the Rx date and continues until midway through the cycle when it reverses course. And that might be what we now have.

There are also some other astrological aspects coming into play this week. On Tuesday, New York time, the Sun will square Saturn and Venus will be parallel (similar to a conjunction).

At the end of the week, we have the Full Moon, with the Sun making a trine to Mars, and on the following day, the Sun will conjunct Neptune.

Sounds exciting, but it probably won't be.

The strongest aspects - Sun square Saturn and Sun conjunct Neptune - don't have any sort of reliable track record for turning markets. In the chart below, the squares are marked with red bars and the conjunctions with Neptune are marked by blue bars.

All rather dull, really.

So, let's begin this weekend with a return to the main theme from last weekend when I talked about applying the techniques from The Technical Section of The Idiot &The Moon to Bi-BB charts.

If you haven't read it, it's in the Archives. Basically, we had arrived at a situation where the extreme tightening of the Bollinger Bands provoked a strong reaction, which then stalled as price broke the bands.

And I said: "However, the breaking of the band then caused a stall in the (down)trend. Polly didn't go much of anywhere all week long. So, two of the significant "rules" have been met and the only one remaining is ... is the first move in the wrong direction?"

I indicated it "could take a few days" to answer the question. We now appear to have the answer. Monday plunged and broke the bands again ... which prompted another stall ... and then the SP500 launched strongly higher.

So, it's certainly possible that the first move WAS in the wrong direction.

However, I've also been indicating that the series of retrogrades involving Venus, Mercury and Mars are likely to jerk markets around in the first few months of the year.

And it's rarely a good idea to rely on sustained moves of any kind while Mercury is Retrograde. Still, it took the SP500 14 days to drop and by Friday's close, only 3 days to recover just over half the decline.

If this is a first-degree countertrend in an ongoing downtrend, it'll fail in the first couple of days of this week and is unlikely to close above 1825.

There are a couple of specific price levels to watch IF the Sun-Saturn square is going to have an impact. These must be touched within $3 on Tuesday/Wednesday or they're very likely to be completely irrelevant.

A decisive close above 1836 would suggest Polly is off with the pixies again ... a close below 1763 would strongly suggest Pollyanna is morphing into Chicken Little again.

I suspect both price levels just won't be touched when they're relevant.

More interesting is that, long-range, Polly's Bull rally is now in a zone where the uptrend support from rising primary Sun/Mercury/Venus price lines is running into downtrend pressure from falling primary lines involving the same planets.

On the chart below the Sun is light green, Mercury is pink and Venus is dark green. They are primary lines; that is, they're set at the maximum 360 degree width and they intersect with each other only once a year.

And tend, always, to have an impact!

In addition to the fast-moving planets, there are some Outer Planet primaries also very important in this current game ... the grey Neptune around 1825, two Uranus lines at 1809 and 1790, and a Pluto down at 1722.

So, for the moment the 500 is holding to the uptrend primaries ... and is playing, apparently, by the technical rules we apply to squeezed Bollinger Bands.

1. Tightening bands warn of a very fast move

2. A break of the outer bands stalls the move or forces a countertrend

3. The first move is usually in the wrong direction

But, we are in a Merc Rx phase and technical signals are prone to sudden failure. Ray Merriman always says of Merc Rx periods: "Take profits too soon."

It's not at all bad advice.

And now you have a fairly good idea of the precise price levels where you just might want to grab those profits!

Safe trading - RA

(scroll down to view previous editions of The Eye of Ra)

Astrological Investing's associate, Randall Ashbourne, author of the eBook, The Idiot and The Moon, and The Idiot and the Moon, Forecast 2014, writes a free weekly column titled, The Eye of Ra on his web site in  which he explains the potential impact of astrological aspects and the current state of technical conditions. Ashbourne's charts are revealing illustrations of exactly what has occurred in the market and the probability of what to expect.
Important reading:  Randall Ashbourne's The Idiot and The Moon, Forecast 2014
(Disclaimer: This article is not advice or a recommendation to trade stocks; it is merely educational material.)
Copyright: Randall Ashbourne - 2011-2014

Price targets for the correction

Randall Ashbourne, an associate of Astrological Investing, posts a weekly market report on his web site, theidiotandthemoon.com The following is this weekend's Eye of RA report: Week beginning August 19, 2013

Venus adds weight to the Uranus/Pluto square

The correction I've been warning about finally started to bite deeply last week ... at least on Wall Street.

I indicated last weekend it was becoming difficult to generalise about stock indices because not all markets were moving in the same direction.

The variations continued throughout last week. However, the main show remains Wall Street and that's what we'll be concentrating on this weekend.

The coming week brings an exact hit of Jupiter square Uranus, an aspect which packs enough punch to either turn the markets ... or accelerate the downswing. We'll take a look at the relevant price levels as we go deeper into the charts.

The Sun is nearing the end of its journey through Leo and will enter Virgo. Leo is a "good mood" sign. It likes a show and has rulership over gambling. Virgo is much more picky and critical. Pull the wool over Leo's eyes and all it sees is the fabled golden fleece.

Try pulling the wool over Virgo's eyes and you'll get a sharp slap in the face, along with a nagging lecture about how dirty and unhygenic it is to be playing with that daggy, disgusting piece of animal skin.

And Venus will soon add her weight to the long-running Uranus/Pluto square.

We'll begin this weekend with an update of a chart I used in the July 29 edition - Imminent danger of another fast drop. I indicated then that I thought there was very little upside left in the rally and the potential for some rather severe downside.

At the time I thought the maximum likely reach for the rally was only 1.6% higher at the 1719 Pluto barrier. Pollyanna, the SP500, couldn't quite get there ... and finished last week below the first downside target I marked in the July 29 edition.

For the moment, we cannot be certain whether this correction is going to eat Price or Time. In other words, it could go on for weeks, but not lose a lot of value ... or it could be a fast, deep plunge.

The state of the Dow Jones Industrials tends to favour the second scenario. Below is the DJI Weekly. The negative divergence between the higher Price peaks and the lower Big Bird peaks became very strident.

And there is no sign yet that it's lessening. Notice how the oscillator has now gone below the trough it recorded at the price low in late June?  It's a preliminary warning the chances are high that Price, too, will plunge lower than it did in June.

So, let's take a three-timeframe look at the 500 to try to get some sense of just how low this might go. We'll use the same mechanism across the monthly, weekly and daily trimeframes - the Bi-BB charts with a fast MACD.

For 9 months Pollyanna has been pushing the outer limits of the upside Bollinger Band, with only partial support from the MACD signal lines and at least some disagreement from the peaks in the MACD histogram.

Three previous corrections have declined all the way to the middle of the BBs. That seems a layer too far this time around. But the middle band of the upper tier, currently at 1583, is also close to the 1578 level listed as a target on the first chart.

The weekly Bi-BB chart is next. The top band has started to roll over, underpinning the potential for a significant correction. All corrections since this upleg began in 2011 have broken down through the middle of the bands, which tends to suggest a drop to at least 1590; pretty much in the same league as the 1583/1578 targets from the earlier charts.

And the daily Bi-BB is below. It suggests a bounceback, or at least a sideways consolidation, is very nearby. The reason why that is so is outlined in The Technical Section of  The Idiot & The Moon; a break of the outer bands almost always stalls the move, regardless of whether it's a topside or downside break. The stall need only be temporary.

Now let's look at what could turn it - or accelerate the downswing. The main astrological show this week is Jupiter squaring Uranus. I've been through this a few times in recent weeks and you might want to visit the Archives for a refresher.

The chart below deals only with the current Jupiter/Uranus/Pluto price levels in terms of the "price crossings" currently in range. To be assured of a strong bounce, we would need to see Pollyanna's price hit 1631-1632 fairly exactly on Wednesday/Thursday of this week ... and close higher than that price!

If the price closes below 1607.80 at that time, the downtrend is likely to plunge even deeper.

That's all for this weekend, folks. The Weekly Planets and long-range charts for various indices I've published recently contain valid price targets for other indices and you can check the Archives for those.

For the moment, the primary action is on Wall Street and what happens there is likely to have considerable impact on virtually all other markets.

Safe trading - RA

Astrological Investing's associate, Randall Ashbourne, author of the eBook, The Idiot and The Moon, and The Idiot and the Moon, Forecast 2013, writes a free weekly column titled, The Eye of Ra on his web site in  which he explains the potential impact of astrological aspects and the current state of technical conditions. Ashbourne's charts are revealing illustrations of exactly what has occurred in the market and the probability of what to expect.
Important reading:  Randall Ashbourne's The Idiot and The Moon, Forecast 2013 , Jupiter's cycle and its effects on Wall Street and a posting of the weekly Eye of Ra report in this blog, titled A look at the Venus Retrograde effect
(Disclaimer: This article is not advice or a recommendation to trade stocks; it is merely educational material.)
Copyright: Randall Ashbourne - 2011-2013

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High-energy aspects will hit mid-week

Randall Ashbourne, an associate of Astrological Investing, posts a weekly market report on his web site, theidiotandthemoon.com The following is this weekend's Eye of RA report: Week beginning August 13, 2012 


Stock markets are due for a date with destiny this coming week with a high chance of breakout ... or breakdown.

Mercury's return to Direct motion last weekend did bring a stop to the spurt-and-reverse cycle.

However, markets did not follow the pattern of ending the Mercury Retrograde period with prices near to where they were when the Rx cycle started.

Instead, they continued a slower grind higher. It was an outcome we anticipated last weekend - largely because of the state of the oscillators on weekly charts for the SP500, the FTSE and the ASX200. I remarked: "So, we have a situation where the normal Mercury Rx mode should bring prices down again by midweek, but the technical picture across three indices points towards further intermediate gains and the potential for a retest of last year's Highs."

In the coming week, there are high-energy aspects involving Venus, Mars, Saturn, Uranus and Pluto likely to provoke a sudden and significant shift.

And there's a New Moon, which leans towards a statistical high.

More significant, though, is a Mars conjunction with Saturn.

In astrological symbolism, Mars is energy and drive. If you want a feeling for how Mars works ... it's a bunch of NASA boys pumping the air with their fists as they parachute a 1 ton dune buggy onto the surface of a distant planet so they can go hooning around in a hot rod on the pretext of discovering the meaning of life.

Saturn is the brick wall. A very solid, very reinforced brick wall. Symbolically, on Wednesday, the "drive" is about to hit a brick wall. At the same time, Venus will oppose Pluto and square Uranus.

Venus, as the ruler of both Taurus and Libra, symbolises the "value" of things. In Taurean mode, the value relates to material things; while in Libra, the value relates to the "worth" one puts on close "others" - a partner, good friends ... even enemies.

So, the value of material things - money in the form of currency and stock values - goes into open conflict (the opposition) with big debt and government intervention (Pluto in Capricorn) and challenges the status quo (Uranus in Aries).

In a nutshell, we have energy now in play which can force a breakout to unexpected highs ... or a complete breakdown. One would expect the latter course.

However, I continually stress the need to make a clear distinction between astrological expectations and technical conditions. It's why last weekend we spent some time looking at intermediate and long-range charts for potential upside barriers, even though the Bradley Model and my own Forecast predictions pointed strongly towards Bear mode.

This weekend, we will go through the exercise again, especially since the Venus and Mars transits are likely to provoke a strong move in one direction or the other.

We'll begin by revisiting a chart which has been used quite a few times in the past few months.

click for larger image

For quite a long time, I maintained only two black horizontal lines on this chart - with the upper line at the 1370 level. Firstly, a statement of the obvious ... the SP500 is still in a multi-year uptrend, riding the diagonal blue channels. It has broken above the 1370 level, which was the large spike down which provided the last low before the high and collapse in late 2007.

I've now added a third black horizontal and quick reference to past prices, indicates it's a very important marker. I also draw your attention to the state of the long-range Canary. Its current peak is lagging behind the price action. It means if we get a higher high, or even a double-top, and that negative divergence display continues in the oscillator, markets are finally set up - technically - to go into freefall. The technical set-up is what has been missing all year ... what I've described a number of times as the elephant in the room, trumpeting the real potential for higher prices than the astrological predictions expected.

Our next chart is Pollyanna's weekly Bi-BB. When I used this chart last weekend, I said: "On a technical basis, the chart suggests a new High is probable, rather than merely possible. The fast MACD looks healthy enough ... and the candlesticks are leaving long tails, indicating Bullish buyers step in just as the Bearish crowd threatens to take command." 

click for larger image

Last week's end of the spurt-and-reverse cycle did push price higher - back into the highest tier of the Bi-BB layers, and with no faltering of the fast MACD signals.

The bad news for the Bearish expectations can also be found in a monthly version.

click for larger image

The primary difference between the weekly and monthly Bi-BBs for the 500 is the relative state of the fast MACD. On the monthly, each price peak has brought a significantly lower peak in the height of the histograms and continuing weakness in the state of the signal lines.

However, the recovery of the upper tier on both charts certainly points to the potential for a breakout above last year's highs before markets roll over for another Bear phase.

I used weekly and long-range planet price charts for the three indices last weekend and you can consult the price levels in the Archives if you need to, since we'll concentrate on technical charts this weekend.

click for larger image

I should, though, show you what happened with the Mercury Rx cycle. The last two of them are marked with the black verticals. We know from Pollyanna's long-range planetary price chart that there's a strong barrier around 1413 ... I pointed out a couple of weeks ago the index has a habit of travelling within Mercurial corridors (the pink lines on the chart above) and last week's prices were contained by a Mercury line.

And price is also knocking its head against an overhead trend channel line.

So, breakout to higher prices does seem unlikely. It's not something we'd expect. However, the technical conditions of the two Bi-BB charts highlight the potential for the unexpected and unlikely to actually occur - and give price targets if it does occur.

click for larger image

That potential is also endorsed by another version of a 500 daily chart. I've been chatting recently about the tendency of this index to run in 30 calendar day cycles once a trend enters cyclical mode. Allowing just a little leniency, we had - starting from the left - a 30 day high-to-high; a 60-day high-to-low; and then two highs coming in on the next 30 and 60 day markers, leaving the possibility that this rally from the early June low could run out to a total of 90 days.

We also discussed the importance of the 1391 level and how it would be rejected strongly on the first hit of that "last low before the high" price.

However, just as with the long-range chart earlier and the breaking of the 1370 August 2007 spike down price, a decisive second penetration of the barrier opens up a stronger chance of challenging the old highs.

There's not much point in going over the same ground with other indices this weekend. Breakout seems illogical; more central bank goosing of the stock markets at these levels seems mad beyond belief. These price levels were deemed to be irrational when times were good. At a time of massive and still-growing debt, unemployment levels at critical highs, and banks facing the risk of collapse, it's a party that should end badly. Very badly.

The reality check could arrive this week with the Venus and Mars aspects.

Safe trading - RA

Astrological Investing's associate, Randall Ashbourne, author of the eBook, The Idiot and The Moon, writes a free weekly column titled, The Eye of Ra on his web site in  which he explains the potential impact of astrological aspects and the current state of technical conditions. Ashbourne's charts are revealing illustrations of exactly what has occurred in the market and the probability of what to expect.
Important reading:  Randall Ashbourne's article, Jupiter's cycle and its effects on Wall Street and a posting of the weekly Eye of Ra report in this blog, titled A look at the Venus Retrograde effect
(Disclaimer: This article is not advice or a recommendation to trade stocks; it is merely educational material.)
Copyright: Randall Ashbourne - 2011-2012