Gold, SP500, TSX, Europe and the ASX200

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 May 20, 2013

So far, the only real "sell in May" action we're seeing is in gold and mining stocks.

This week kicks off with another exact hit of the long-running Uranus square to Pluto and will end with another Full Moon Lunar Eclipse.

The Sun leaves stable and money-conscious Taurus and moves into Gemini. Volatility will increase - and in both directions. Mercury and Venus will also be in Gemini and will be joined by Mars at the end of the month.

It puts all the inner planets on course for a conjunction get-together with Jupiter. We'll take a close look at the potential implications of that next weekend; but the past two years have seen intermediate tops locked-in as the Sun and Venus conjuncted Jupiter.

Wall Street, England and Germany have now reached long-range targets published in Forecast 2013.

We'll spend this weekend looking at those targets and the technical state of the charts to see if "that's it", or whether the rally still has legs to run.

I'll update Australian readers on the state of the ASX200 and we'll take a look at the latest rundown in gold prices.

And it's gold we'll look at first.

While the topic is not raised in The Idiot & The Moon, I have on occasion discussed a technical condition called trading against a spike. The last significant one of these we saw was in stock indices in August-October, 2011. Gold now appears to be in a similar state.

Basically, what happens is this ... price produces a large-range spike; there is a strong bounceback from the low; and then the spike is retested. It is the nature of how the spike is tested which gives us an indication of whether a larger bounceback is coming, or whether the freefall continues.

The planetary charts for gold, and their explanation, were introduced in Forecast 2013 and, so far, gold continues to play to them with almost uncanny accuracy.

In the chart below, we see the sudden April plunge ... the strong bounceback ... and now the retest is underway.

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For a stronger bounceback to occur, or even a complete trend change, gold needs to make either a higher low, or only a marginal new low. The higher low would come from around 1337 and a marginal new low should not go significantly below the rising, primary Sun line currently priced at 1320.

The reality is that for gold to recover, stock indices probably need to drop ... and that's what we'll spend this weekend looking at.

At various times recently, I've published this chart for Pollyanna, the SP500, indicating the index may have been on a run between Uranus/Pluto planetary barriers. The target price was around 1610, though I did warn there was a higher target in the 1660s.

And ...

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It's interesting to see how Polly has dealt with these Uranus/Pluto price zones since bouncing off one late in 2012 to launch into very strong rally mode - the resistance has been overcome by forced jumps over the hurdles. The next Uranus/Pluto zone is the 1700s.

However, let's look at where the index is in relation to the long-range planetary targets I published in January, in Forecast 2013. The index is now hitting against strong resistance from a Node barrier. The next highest target is Pluto at 1719.

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We are, however, entering the statistically negative period between the 1Q and Full Moons ... and with Polly having breached the topside of the Bi-BBs. As explained in The Technical Section of the book, a breach of the upper or lower outer bands tends to cause either a sideways shuffle, or a countertrend.

Last week's price action breached the weekly upper band for only the second time in years. The previous one prompted a 9-week decline after some initial sideways shuffling. One other thing to note is that all the declines so far have travelled the full width of the bands ... so, IF one starts in the next week or two, the history suggests Chicken Little is going to want to slash 200 points from Polly.

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The other warning sign on the chart above relates to the condition of the fast MACD histogram peaks. The signal lines are fine. But the histogram peaks have been in constant decline throughout the rally from October, 2011.

Okay. The two other Western indices as brightly optimistic as Polly are the FTSE and the DAX. We'll deal first with Germany, which has had a breakout above the major price target published in the Forecast.

Ten-thousand plus seems like a fairytale target. But, that's the next major planetary barrier for the DAX.

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The planetary lines in the chart above are set at their maximum width. However, I used them because the German index has a strong track record of actually reaching them and they cannot be dismissed lightly. But we can use a Fibonacci Extension tool as a guide to potential targets within the 2000 points of "empty" space above.

Even so, the nearest higher target is several hundred more points away. AND all 3 Canaries - short, medium and long-range - are not at all unhappy.

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The FTSE's long-range planetary price chart is below and I discussed in Forecast 2013 how the 6300s would be a difficult area, given the index's history of stalling at Uranus/Pluto zones. London has had a strong breakout after the months-long stall in that zone ... and also broken above the Neptune barrier which stopped the 2007 Bull run.

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And in the chart below, the long-range Canary is singing quite happily. Note the divergence which slowly built in the indicator (the blue line in the lower oscillator panel) as price rose into the 2007 Bull peaks ... and note especially that there is absolutely no sign of divergence in its current readings.

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Paris is next and I again use the chart from Forecast 2013. The CAC40 finally managed to break free of the 3800 price zone.

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Since the CAC is not breaking out to new Bull market highs, we need to pay attention to the Fibonacci Retracement levels. There is very strong positive divergence evident in the FiboRx chart below. None of these oscillators has been this happy since the post-2009 recovery began and the higher FiboRx levels correspond with the potential planetary targets.

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Returning now to North America for a look at the Canadian market. The TSX is in a similar state to the CAC40 ... ie: well below its earlier recovery high.

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Now to my home market, Australia. Again, probably the most important thing on the chart is the state of the long-range Canary. While the short-term and medium range Birds are declining, the long-range line has hit new peaks. No negative divergence building, as it did during the push into the 2007 highs.

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Auntie's Weekly Planets chart is below. After being blocked by a Neptune level in March and April, the index is now testing support on top of the line - and the price targets, if it succeeds, are obvious.

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However, there is a warning sign flashing. The long-range Canary is holding above the +100 level, but appears to be increasingly unhappy. Remember this is a weekly chart - and the negative divergence is not present in the monthly chart.

Which suggests that any short to medium range price weakness in the index will be overcome and that higher prices are not merely possible, but are probable, over the course of the year.

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

The Idiot and the Moon, Forecast 2013

• Major trend change dates for the full year, plus a month-by-month breakdown of high-energy trading dates and critical reversal dates.

• An index-by-index analysis of Moon Trading across major American, European, Asian and Australian stock indices-

• Identifies the major indices where following the phases of the Moon can dramatically cut profits, or even result in large losses.

• Old Gods & Gold ... a Eureka! discovery about exactly what drives gold prices during rallies and corrections and charts showing highly-reliable target levels to both the upside and downside.

These price charts are individually-tailored to each index and cover Wall Street, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, India, England, Germany and France.

You will not see these charts anywhere else on the Internet!

And much more...

It is NEVER too late in the year to have this monthly information!

The 4 aspects of the apocalypse

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 April 22, 2013

Nerves of steel will be required over the next couple of weeks as four market-moving aspects take control of the markets.

Despite the shift from fiery Aries into earthy and stable Taurus by the Sun, Venus and Mars, fast and volatile moves in different directions are likely.

I'll show you the historical performance of these aspects in a moment and it'll be obvious why we all need to exercise care and caution.

Each one of the aspects is capable of producing a significant High or Low in markets. But, when they occur as a tight grouping together, the Highs and Lows have a strong historical tendency to be relatively major in intermediate terms ... and in some cases, a multi-year change of trend.

Now, apocalypse is probably too strong a word. But, I have a 5th House, unaspected Sagittarian Sun, so quiet and reserved understatement tends not to be a character trait. And at least I got your attention.

The aspects begin with Venus, in Taurus, opposing Saturn, in Scorpio, on Monday (USA time). The Full Moon later in the week is a lunar eclipse FM and with the Moon conjuncting Saturn.

Next weekend, the Sun opposes Saturn; and at the end of the following week, Mars, the mover of markets, also opposes Saturn ... meaning that "drive" is hurtling towards a collision with a brick wall.

We'll also be taking another look at gold this weekend for those of you holding positions in the metal itself, or in relevant mining stocks.

But first, we'll look at the historical performance of the four astrological events I mentioned a moment ago. In the chart below, a weekly of the SP500, Mars oppose Saturn events are marked with a red bar; Venus oppose Saturn is pink; Sun oppose Saturn is blue; and lunar eclipses are green bars.

Each single one is important individually, but I have circled the 6 previous occasions when these four have arrived as a group ... and their impact on stock prices has been sudden and dramatic.

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Two of the 6 played an important role in determining the bottom of the past two Bear crashes. One was present at a temporary stall in the early 2000s Bear; and the remaining 3 marked important turning points within intermediate corrections during Bull runs.

It's not then a true apocalypse scenario ... but it just might feel that way if you're caught on the wrong side of the sudden turns. And not one of these events was an insignificant, ho-hum period in the markets.

Next we'll take a close-up look at what happened on daily charts during the last appearance of this tight grouping in early 2011.

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The series began with Sun in opposition to Saturn marking out a top ... a fall then into Mars oppose Saturn ... a rise into Venus oppose Saturn ... and a sharp drop into a new low at the green lunar eclipse. We could be in for a wild ride in the next couple of weeks, especially with 3 of the 4 due to play out this week.

Now let's turn our attention to gold again. And I won't bother stepping politely this weekend. This appears to have been pure larceny. The big banks, most notably two of those which own the US Federal Reserve, had amassed enormous Short positions in gold.

Unfortunately, the broad world market didn't agree and price was shuffling sideways rather than tanking. At the same time, there had been a run on physical gold depositories. For some obscure reason, investors didn't trust the system and had begun moving their bullion into private vaults. Oh, tsk*tsk. This was a big problem for the banks ... not only was price not sliding dramatically, they were in dire danger of default if people kept rolling up with armoured vans to move their physical gold.

A co-ordinated worldwide raid was launched. Over in London, the computers which handle sales of physical gold crashed, supposedly because of the number of people trying to place trades. Far too many of which were Buy orders! Gee golly, the computers at the American dealers which handle paper gold did not crash - even though they, too, were suddenly inundated with orders.

Meanwhile, they all stayed open over the weekend to send out margin calls ... but not open enough to allow anyone to transfer money to meet the margin calls by the market opening on Monday. It was theft on a massive scale ... and just as with the various other incidents like the flash crash and the Fat-Fingered Freddy "mistake", absolutely nothing will be done about it.

If it were, we might find out the real reason why the US Federal Reserve can't actually supply Germany's 300 tons of bullion for 7 years.

The banks are playing a very dangerous game. They desperately need real amounts of physical gold - and, of course, they want it cheap. Their problem is ... drive the price too low and physical gold will dry up fast because a lot of small mines have a very high cost of production and will be forced to shutter, rather than lose money.

In any case, the price of gold continues to respond, quite precisely, to the planetary charts I introduced this year in Forecast 2013. Let's start with a close-up of the daily action.

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After the forced margin-call selling on Monday, the bounceback began with a false break below a secondary Pluto line, when price touched a Sun line. In technical terms, this does appear to be - probably - a temporary bounce before another drop. That drop is likely to produce an even bigger bounce, possibly even a change in the overall downtrend.

We'll go now to the weekly chart. The most significant price levels are the primary Pluto lines - 1518, 1363 and 1160. Also significant are the primary Sun lines. Primary Sun support is provided in the coming week at 1300.

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Okay, that's it for this edition. I will try, next weekend, to update Weekly Planets charts for Canada and the major Asian indices; it has been a few weeks since we last looked at them.

Be aware of at least the potential for things to go crazy over the next two weeks. The particular set of astrological aspects to Saturn, combined with a lunar eclipse, very rarely fails to produce fast moves in different directions - and are often exact on the day, as I tried to illustrate with the second chart in this edition.
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

The Idiot and the Moon, Forecast 2013

• Major trend change dates for the full year, plus a month-by-month breakdown of high-energy trading dates and critical reversal dates.

• An index-by-index analysis of Moon Trading across major American, European, Asian and Australian stock indices-

• Identifies the major indices where following the phases of the Moon can dramatically cut profits, or even result in large losses.

• Old Gods & Gold ... a Eureka! discovery about exactly what drives gold prices during rallies and corrections and charts showing highly-reliable target levels to both the upside and downside.

These price charts are individually-tailored to each index and cover Wall Street, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, India, England, Germany and France.

You will not see these charts anywhere else on the Internet!

And much more...

It is NEVER too late in the year to have this monthly information!