Three Old Gods set the world on fire

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 September 15  2014 

It is time we had a little chat about The Spooky Stuff, since Mars moves out of Scorpio and into Sagittarius this weekend ... as gigantic solar flares head towards Earth.

Now I'm well aware most of you pop in each week for a look at the state of the stock markets and that you don't really believe a bunch of rocks and giant gas balls named after some mythological Greek gods can possibly have any real impact on Life, as we know it.

For you it's all a bit of fun ... like sticking your head in the fortune teller's tent at the village fair.

Well, come on in ... I have three tall, dark, handsome strangers I want you to meet! Of course, after you meet them you'll probably want to run away. Far away!

When I published Forecast 2014 in early January, the first chapter was titled: 2014 ... and let slip the dogs of war.

I started: "There is only one real show in the skies this year … a dramatic escalation in the ongoing War of the Gods which has been underway since 2008 and is not due to end until 2015. Hostilities are likely to hit a new peak in the first four months of 2014."

So let's recap. In March, Russia annexed Crimea ... following NATO-American backing of the overthrow of Ukraine's President. Those who overthrew the elected government were labelled patriotic heroes and those who supported the ousted leader were labelled terrorists.

Further south, the NATO-Americans were following the same script that had worked so amazingly well in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya ... pump mega-millions of arms, equipment and training to the "patriotic heroes" struggling valiantly to overcome their status as poor, huddled masses yearning to be "free".

Unsurprisingly ... for anyone with an IQ exceeding room temperature ... the nutbags flowered in the desert sands liberally fertilised with blood-and-bone, called themselves Islamic State and by June had extended their caliphate from Syria into Iraq. Mission Accomplished. So to speak.

Oops!

Sadly ... quite tragically for millions of people directly involved ... the "new peak" of the first 4 months of 2014 is now in real danger of being only a very minor peak.

With Mars now in Sagittarius, we have three Old Gods now in Fire signs. Uranus is in Aries, a position I have frequently characterised as armed rebellion.

Jupiter, the king of the Old Gods, is in Leo, a sign which considers itself kingly. The megalomaniac in egomaniac mode. GeeZeus!

And Mars, the god of war, is in Sadge. Good Sadge is benevolent, extraordinarily tolerant, and welcomes cultural and political diversity with open arms. But, Sagittarius also symbolises foreign countries, a careless attitude to borders and restrictions in the search for "a higher purpose" and, in general, the world at large.

Oh, dear. The god of war, on fire, let loose on "the world at large" in pursuit of "a higher purpose".

Get my meaning? Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!!

Starting on September 25, these three planets start to go into trine with each other. In normal astrological symbolism, as I've explained before, a trine is regarded as being fairly benevolent.

But, that's the cookbook interpretation. What a trine actually means is the rapid removal of obstacles ... and that can be very, very good or very, very bad.

In short, we are heading for another climax ... one that is potentially "the world on fire".

But, hey! That's the negative side!! It might mean a sudden outbreak of tolerance, acceptance and peace. Why, sure!

Anyway, as I said last weekend, that volatile stuff in the markets we saw a couple of weeks ago ... You ain't seen nuttin' yet.

Here are Pollyanna's (SP500) primary planet lines and prices and Auntie's (ASX200) Weekly Planets. YOU may not "believe" ... tell that to the Prices.

Safe trading - RA

 (Disclaimer: This article is not advice or a recommendation to trade stocks; it is merely educational material.)
Copyright: Randall Ashbourne - 2011-2014

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  

  Purchase Forecast 2014 and receive a special report on GOLD   

Venus takes a swim, Mars catches Fire

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 September 8  2014 

This will be an interesting week in the markets in spite of the ceasefire negotiated to bring Ukraine off the boil.

I indicated last weekend that Wall Street was likely to be volatile in the shortened week following the Labor Day holiday and we'll look at exactly how that panned out in a moment.

There is the potential for danger dead ahead. One of the most accurate Elliott Wave theorists on the web believes American markets are about to go into correction.

And Clif Droke, who is both an expert in Kress cycles and financial astrology, is forecasting a decline into October or, at best, a continuation of a sideways range.

Both of them believe there will be a strong resumption of the Bull trend in the later part of the year.

This week begins with a Harvest Full Moon. Mercury will square Pluto and oppose Uranus; Venus will oppose Neptune midweek; and Mars moves out of Scorpio into the Fire sign, Sagittarius, next weekend.

Normally, the Full Moon is a statistical low point. It might not work this time.
Let's look first at the historical track record of Venus opposing Neptune and Mars entering Sagittarius. In terms of Greek mythology, Venus and Neptune are buddies. 

Venus was born when Saturn castrated his poppa, Uranus, and threw his manly bits into the ocean. There was a bit of froth and bubble, Venus popped up, and Neppy rescued her from the waves and took her back to shore in his chariot.

So, aspects between Venus and Neptune have a tendency to be relatively benign. The reality doesn't always match the expectations; Venus-Neptune oppositions occur near peaks, as well as troughs. There has been only one previous occasion in the past few years where the aspect occurred simultaneously with Mars moving to Sadge ... it concided with the sudden drop in October, 2012.

Now, last weekend I indicated there was some danger to the SP500 rally because it had peaked the week before very close to the price of a Sun-Neptune crossing.

I said: "So, when Wall Street opens on Tuesday, the big boys' computers are going to have to force a gap above $2004 ... or the index will be in danger of starting a dive."

That is exactly what happened. Pollyanna gapped-up to open at almost $2006 when Wall Street went back to work on Tuesday.

And it gapped-up again the next day.

You can see just how volatile the shortened week was by the range of the price bars.

That's probably just a small taste of what is to come over the next few weeks.

There is a battle going on to control the immediate future of stock prices.

That battle is perhaps even more obvious when we return to the wider view of where Pollyanna is positioned in relation to primary planet prices. Breakout above the falling, dark green Venus opens targets at 2028 and rising Mars in the 2040s; a breakdown suggests the 1970s or 1960 before strong support comes back into play.

The ASX 200 is still having trouble climbing above, and staying above, its Weekly Planets Neptune barrier, now priced around 5640.

The rise in the value of the American dollar caused another sharp slump in the price of greenback gold. There is potential support from a secondary Pluto and a rising Sun line not far below.

Safe trading - RA

 (Disclaimer: This article is not advice or a recommendation to trade stocks; it is merely educational material.)
Copyright: Randall Ashbourne - 2011-2014

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  

  Purchase Forecast 2014 and receive a special report on GOLD   

Mercury Rx & Mars meets 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 November 19, 2012

We have reached the halfway mark of the current Mercury Retrograde period ... and Mars changes signs from Sagittarius to Capricorn this weekend.

Either of these astro events is enough to change the direction of the existing trend.

The big question is for how long, since by the end of the week Mars will be squaring Uranus and conjuncting Pluto.

I have discussed with you in the past the so-called Mars/Uranus crash cycle and its total, complete and utter NON-reliability to actually bring on a crash. Just because certain members of the astrological community like to make dire predictions about Mars/Uranus hard aspects, doesn't mean they know what they're talking about.

We will take a graphical look at the aspects again in a moment or two, as well as what is "normal" halfway though a Merc Rx period. And we will consider a particular technical condition which indicates the bottom of the current correction is not yet complete.

But, let me first deal with the astro symbolism. Mars is energy and drive. He's the all-action guy, not overly blessed in the brain department. Uranus is a weirdo nutbag who delights in giving everyone the irrits by doing the complete opposite of what one would expect conditions dictate.

When Action Guy meets up with Psycho Nutbag in conjunction, opposition or square, "stuff" happens ... just not necessarily the stuff you were counting on.

So let's remind ourselves of the actual historical performance, as opposed to the crash predictions.

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In the weekly chart of Miss Pollyanna above, the Mars/Uranus conjunctions are marked in blue, the oppositions in red, and the squares are the green bars. Of the 7 oppositions shown, only 3 show up at peaks, bringing on a crash. The first shows up at the August 2000 peak and the second instance was a countertrend top just before the index made a Bear bottom in 2002. The 3rd instance was in August 2008, just before markets went into the worst of the post-2007 crash.

The blue conjunctions don't seem to signify much at all and nor do the squares, which are sometimes sort-of near tops, sometimes sort-of near bottoms, and sometimes sort-of midway through a trend which just continues in the direction it was going beforehand.

Ergo, the "Mars/Uranus crash cycle" is a cycle the way a rectangle is a wheel. It doesn't bloody work! The Mars/Uranus oppositions would seem to be more dangerous than the conjunctions and squares ... and even they seem to work only half the time.

I'm not dismissing the potential out-of-hand, merely indicating that the actual track record suggests it's not an aspect which reliably brings about a crash.

Now, let's turn our attention to the Mercury Retrograde phase. In the first report for November, I said: "What normally happens with stock markets when Merc goes Rx is that it starts a trend which goes into reverse halfway through the period. That would mean a potential trend change date on the 16th - the day Mars changes signs from Sagittarius to Capricorn and starts making its own aspects to the ongoing Uranus/Pluto square."

It's true I thought the bounceback might have started earlier last week, but the "fiscal cliff" reiterations kept markets in a freefall until Friday.

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So, Friday went to a new Low ... and bounced; indicating that, perhaps, we are going to get the "normal" behaviour ... which is that a trend which starts when Mercury goes Retrograde, reverses course halfway through the cycle. In fact, it's fairly normal for markets to finish the Merc Rx period with prices within 1% of the level they were when the phase started.
The chart above marks the last Merc Rx period between the two black verticals and the current one is now halfway through. IF we do get a Thanksgiving week bounceback, and optimism is the mood "norm" for America in this week, it wouldn't be unusual for the index to reconnect with a Mercury planetary price line.

The prices are: 1428 if the rebound recovers within 1% of the start of the period; 1398 and 1391 as "safer" targets ... and 1308 if the plunge continues.

Now, I have a caveat about the potential length of any bounceback ... and it's not really related to the Mars/Uranus/Pluto aspects coming up as we end the coming week.

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It's related to a technical condition, not an astrological expectation. Simply, there is no positive divergence in the state of the long-range Canary on Miss Pollyanna's daily chart. First, just an eyeball ... this is a significant correction in terms of time and price.

And because it is, we would normally expect to see an instance of divergence between price and the oscillator ... as we did during previous corrections of this significance. Divergence is explained in The Technical Section of the book and is worth re-reading if you're still trying to come to grips with it.

We can see it quite clearly in the chart above. The lack of positive divergence in the current set-up is a warning that any bounceback has a high chance of failing and that Miss Polly, the SP500, needs to make a lower price low below 1343, while the Canary makes a higher trough.

Also in the November 5 edition, available in the Archives, I published a broad range of index charts in an attempt to show the likely range for the whole month ... and here's how Polly has played with Chicken Little back on stage.

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In brief, it's entirely possible we have seen the range for November and the final half of the month will play within that territory.

But, we need to be fully aware that the danger to continuation of the Bull recovery run is significant; the fast MACD signals on Weekly Planets charts for most indices are still in decline - and could drop much further yet.

The Nasdaq 100, NDX, chart is below, followed by similar charts for the FTSE, the DAX and the ASX 200.

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You'll note the MACD decline on most of those charts is in its early stages, so I'm basing my expectation of a bounce largely on what is "normal" behaviour during a Merc Rx period ... and on the usual pattern of a Mars sign change at least temporarily changing the trend in play.

And, also, because while there's no positive divergence between price and oscillator on Miss Polly's dailies, it actually is there on my NDX charts and the Nasdaq often acts as a leading index - that is, it changes direction before the DJI or the 500.

And if Wall Street goes that way, we can assume most of the other major indices will do the same. >


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

Price points for a Pollyanna bounceback

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 October 15, 2012

Goldman Sachs has issued a "buy, buy, buy" alert and Citigroup's chief stock strategist is tipping "a raging Bull" market into 2013 with an SP500 target of 1615.

And Gloom Boom & Doom guy, Marc Faber, spent last week reiterating his prediction of a 20% plunge in the same index.

For the moment, either scenario is possible - but there doesn't yet seem to be sufficient evidence to determine which one is probable.

In predicting a strong rally, Goldmans is relying on the statistical norm of what tends to happen in US Presidential election years ... 87% of the time Wall Street spurts during the 4th Quarter, with an average gain of 3.5%.

Last weekend, we went through both weekly and long-range charts for a number of world indices in an effort to set probable upside and downside targets for the current month. We looked at a couple of planetary charts for the SP500 which indicated prices were likely to decline - and a couple for the Shanghai index, indicating it was likely to recover.

Monday brings a New Moon ... which tends to be a statistical high ... as well as a Mars trine from Sagittarius to Uranus in Aries; and on Tuesday Venus will square Jupiter. We'll have a look in a little while at exactly what Miss Pollyanna needs to do to get a boost from either of those astrological aspects

But before we do that, lets have another look at the Shanghai composite index. I indicated last weekend the main Chinese index may be bottoming at a primary Saturn line which played an important role as both Resistance and Support in the past. Those charts can be reviewed in the Archives (available from www.theidiotandthemoon.com ).

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As we anticipated, Shanghai is attempting to recover above the primary Saturn boundary, shown on the chart above with the thick cyan line ... and there is technical support for continued higher prices from the relatively mild positive divergence in the oscillator.

However, our main focus this weekend will be the state of Pollyanna, the SP500. Once again, my apologies to Canadian readers. Yahoo Finance stopped providing historical data for a number of indices back in June, including the TSX and DJI, and I'm having trouble finding a replacement data source.

I showed two charts last weekend which indicated the likely immediate path for Pollyanna was downwards ... because the index had topped out the previous week backing away from an exact price crossing point involving Mercury and Saturn.

I said at the time: "What normally happens with these points is that if price breaks through and Closes above the exact level, it sets the stage for a rally boost.

On the other hand, if price rises into the exact level and then backs away, the odds increase that an important target peak has been hit - and the immediate path ahead is downwards.

Friday's price action suggests this is what has happened ... and the negativity is strengthened because the block shows up in both directions."

Well, "what normally happens" did happen, in spite of the generally positive mood which prevails from 3Q to New Moon.

Statistically, markets tend to peak around the New Moon. But, there is the potential for either Mars trine Uranus, or Venus square Jupiter, to provide a boost.

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And the key to direction will be how price performs on both Monday and Tuesday. On the chart to the right, note the intersection of the falling red Mars line with the thick yellow Uranus line.

It's at 1434. Pollyanna must close decisively above this level on Monday to re-enter rally mode. She gets a second chance at an astro energy boost on Tuesday, if she fails the 1434 Monday test.

In the chart above, the Venus square Jupiter price crossing point (rising green intersection with horizontal blue) is 1426.

So there are two things to watch for ... a Monday close above 1434, or a Tuesday low at 1426, from which price bounces.

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Mars is now in Sagittarius and it'll be joined by the Moon later in the week. Sagittarius has a tendency to exaggerate either the optimism ... or the fear. And wide-range days are the norm when the Moon is in Sadge.

The first hint to which outcome is more likely will be provided by price performance on Monday and Tuesday and how the index reacts at the 1434, or 1426, price crossing points.

In terms of the big picture, the index is still riding the central tyne of a Bullish pitchfork anchored at key long-range highs and lows. The rally angles within the pitchfork are extremely sharp - a result of all the money borrowed by central governments to boost the banks.

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We still have no croaking of the long-range Canary which would lend support to Marc Faber's view of an imminent plunge - though Faber has set a timeline of up to 6 months and we could get an instance of negative divergence by then.

Sticking with the big picture, let's review the weekly charts for the 500.

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The last two peaks on the long-range Canary have come in lower than its peaks during the first stages of the recovery rally. That's a warning sign ... but, it's an early warning sign. There's another one from Pollyanna's apparent inability to rise above the highest level of the channel lines.

I published the long-range planetary chart and its prices last weekend, so you can check that if you need to. The chart above concentrates purely on three levels of technical horizontal support/resistance. We'll zoom-in now and have a closer look at that chart.

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So, if Miss Polly fails the astro energy boost price crossings on Monday/Tuesday, the weekly chart above shows key levels of horizontal and diagonal Support likely to stall the fall.

And, really, there's not much else to look at. The charts in last weekend's edition remain valid for setting the likely range for the month in individual indices - and most of those indices will be influenced over the course of the next week by how the SP500 reacts. If that index can climb above the price crossing points, the Sagittarian effect is likely to exagerrate the optimistic outlook. If it fails the two tests, we're more likely to see fear rising and markets continue to fall.
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