Taking a look at Asian markets

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 4, 2013

On Wall Street, Miss Polly is bumping her head again; and in Washington they're talking budget blues again ... for the umpteenth time when Mercury is Retrograde.

It's fairly well accepted that during the Reagan presidency, Nancy kept her favorite astrologer handy to help with not just the timing of decisions, but the direction of decisions.

 Just maybe that's part of the reason Ron and Nancy enjoyed a lot more support at the end of Reagan's time in office than was evident at the start.

For the past few Obama years, however, it seems that every major decision is put off until Mercury is Retrograde; outcomes are difficult to negotiate; and almost invariably nothing real gets done and the can de jour just gets kicked down the road.

We're back on the same old treadmill. It's all too, too depressing for me to make any predictions this weekend.

We're approaching the midpoint of the Merc Rx period and this week goes into the 3Q-NM lunar phase. In terms of the SP 500 last year, only four of these phases were negative.

They tended to be slightly less positive than the FM-3Q phase, which is now ending. This weekend, we'll take a quick look at Pollyanna and the Nasdaq 100 and then take a closer look at the Asian markets because I want to demonstrate something about the Weekly Planets charts.

Almost boringly, we'll use the same 500 and NDX charts I've used over the past couple of weekends.

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Polly is back at the breakout-or-breakdown barriers of the planetary lines which capped the 2000 and 2007 Bull markets. To be frank, I have no idea at all which way this is going to go.

Overcoming that overhead Uranus/Pluto hurdle opens targets in the range from about 1548 to 1572. If things go the other way, my best guestimate for the downside would be the grey Neptune at 1466.

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The NDX, above, continues to be stalled by the Uranus barrier now at 2770 ... and continues to make what might, or might not, be the right shoulder of a head & shoulders formation. If it plays out, it's again Neptune I'd expect to stop the drop - at a price around 2440.

Anyway, I really don't know and I want to look at the Asian markets instead, because I want to show you something about my Weekly Planets charts.

The last time we looked at the Straits Times Index, Singapore, I think was in late January and if you check the Archives, you'll see the upside target was listed as 3319.

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Well, the high for the STI came in a 3319.19 - and the index has been in correction mode since it was hit. In other words, the hit was quite precise.

That Neptune line, which also capped the 2010 peaks, is currently priced a tad higher at 3332 and I've also updated the two most likely downside targets.

It's also been several weeks since I published Shanghai charts.

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The last time I published this one, the Neptune line was priced at 2407. There was a slight overshoot when Shanghai topped at 2434.48 and then went into correction.

Given the positive divergence which appeared in the oscillator as Shanghai made its final low, and because of the strong rise in that oscillator since then, I'd think the index is far more likely to breakout and the next upside targets are in the range from 2600 to 2800.

If you're a regular reader, you probably already "get" the value of these Weekly Planet charts in helping determine Entry and Exit levels for some very profitable trades. If you're one of the recent arrivals, these two serve as a good example of how it works - and you might want to trawl through the Archives to find your favorite index if it's not in this weekend's edition.

Hong Kong ...

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The Hang Seng is one of those which didn't reach the target on the last attempt and the fast MACD has rolled over. Still, there was no really major negative divergence at the high and the index is trying to hold an interim Saturn line as Support.

Indonesia ...

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Jakarta has been on a roll, one of the strongest indices in the region. I haven't created planetary charts for the index yet ... and I'm not sure the number of Indonesian readers warrants it. If the information really is of strong interest to you, drop me a line and I might work it out for future editions.

Just technically in the meantime ... this romp outside the upper boundaries of the Bi-BBs can't be sustained for long, despite approval from the fast MACD. Breaking the BBs normally means a sideways move, or downside correction, is not very far away.

Malaysia ...

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And there's a good current example of precisely how that works in the Kuala Lumpur index. Just cast your eyes back to look at what happened with the price on previous occasions when the top layer of BBs was broken.

Australia ...

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We'll finish, as usual, with the ASX200. The 4985 Saturn level held up as Support for the second week running. A rather mild case of negative divergence is developing in the oscillator, but it's not so bad yet that it sets alarm bells ringing. So far, I see nothing to change my mind that another strong rally is coming before we need to be really cautious about Auntie, even if the index corrects further before launching that rally.

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...

Breakout or breakdown: Part II

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 25, 2013

 And now you know why I sometimes refer to the Pollyanna index, Wall Street's SP500, as a vacuous troll!

Last weekend, I said: "This week ... next week probably at the latest ... the vacuous troll has to make up her mind whether she's going to breakout or breakdown." 

And she did both! Arghh! The one-day break above the long-range planetary lines which capped the 2000 and 2007 Bull peaks was quickly followed by Chicken Little rushing back to centre stage. Briefly. Or not?

That's the question we'll consider this weekend ... because if that was "a false break" last Tuesday, we've only seen the first part of the storm.

Mercury goes Retrograde this weekend and stays that way until March 17. I mentioned briefly last weekend that we all need to be extra careful during Merc Rx and make sure we're pushing the buttons we actually intended to press ... and, that the "normal" mode of Mercury Retrograde, is to start a move which reverses course halfway through the period.

One of the other totally reliable signatures of Murky Wrecks is that computers do strange things and price feeds go oddly awry at the most inconvenient times.

It's usually worst on the couple of days around the Rx and Direct dates.

We'll start with updates of the Pollyanna and Nasdaq 100 charts I showed last weekend.

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Tuesday opened with a blast above the Uranus/Pluto price barriers Miss Polly had been bumping her head against for a few days ... and it provoked a sudden reaction downwards on Wednesday and Thursday. A "false break" is when price suddenly overcomes a key barrier, regardless of whether it's a technical line, Fibonacci, or planetary, and suddenly gets scared. They have a tendency to prompt very fast, wide-range moves.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was going to start keeping manual charts for the SP500 because the official Open figures provided by the NYSE were too often an outright lie. If you pay even scant attention to various indices, you'll notice they all have "quirks".

The FTSE for example opens each day at exactly the price it closed the previous day. It's a joke. The TSX, ASX, DAX and NDX all use the actual figure. Anyway, on the Pollyanna chart above, I've used the real figures.

Because, the false figures from the NYSE deliberately conceal "gaps" in the price. Nature abhors a vacuum and gaps get filled! We can see it at work short-term on Friday, when the bounceback closed the gap from Thursday's Open. But there's one real Duesie of a hole waiting to be filled from early January when the big boys goosed the overnight trade to put a rocket under the Santa rally.

So, what do we do? Well, we know where the upside Resistance is and I indicated last weekend this was starting to look like a completed stage running from one Uranus/Pluto zone to another. But I didn't think then, and don't think now, that the correction is the start of The Big One. I would doubt, at this stage, that a correction would fill that gap from early January.

Now, let's have another look at the Nasdaq 100 ...

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I thought a couple of weekends ago that the falling light green Sun line would drag the NDX down, but the decline held off until it bumped into the falling Venus line at Wednesday's Open. There are two obvious, unfilled gaps in the index. In fact, if the decline resumes this week, I'd think it's likely to run to the yellow Uranus line below the first gap.

The faster Canaries, green and red in the oscillator panel, have plunged deep enough to indicate they'll have to show an instance of positive divergence (higher troughs at lower prices) before the correction is finished. The only caveat I have is that the Big Bird, the yellow line, may be in the process of bouncing from the Zero line - and I've mentioned before that a "Zero Line Rejection" can produce a strong move (in this case it would be rally).

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And a rally is possible if last week's action was just a plunge into the statistically negative mood of the Full Moon. Not looking so good, though, on the NDX Weekly Planets chart above. The potential head&shoulders pattern, which is decidedly negative, still seems to be in play.

Now, a lot of H&S patterns eventually don't turn out that way; they morph into something else. But, in this case we have some big time negative divergence underway in the fast MACD, now making another lower peak in both the signal lines and histograms. Remember, this is a weekly chart, so if the price pattern follows the oscillator omens, this will be more than a short, sharp correction over a couple of days.

Canada ...

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The capped version of the TSX 60 has been range-trading. I use this chart for those of you wanting to try your own version. The red lines, of course, are Mars ... and most of the regular Canadian readers will know Mars is the "driver" of markets. The grey and yellow horizontals are Neptune and Uranus.

The index has a distinct tendency to travel along Martian channels between Neptune/Uranus stop-offs. Anyway, the effect is easy to see and this is a chart you can replicate relatively closely without shelling out for expensive planetary software ... just set the horizontal S/R lines at 12-Loony intervals.

London ...

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The FTSE last week made a precise touch on the high side of the Weekly Planets targets and immediately backed off. No surprise there, eh? Despite the stalling, I wouldn't bet on London having reached The High just yet, even if it corrects further before launching a new rally. There's hardly a whisper of warning from the fast MACD.

Mumbai ...

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India's Nifty didn't quite make it to the overhead Saturn - and that seems to be a repeat of what happened with the index in February last year, when it broke above a Uranus barrier for one week and then went into decline. It seems to be repeating the pattern with the Neptune line at 6027. There's a primary Saturn line at 5813 and it could be useful to closely monitor how the oscillators behave if it declines to that level.

Just as a technical reminder, note the negative divergence peaks in the Big Bird, which recorded lower peaks as the price was making higher ones.

And finally, for this week, a look at Auntie, the ASX 200 ...

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Showing this chart last weekend, I said: "While Wall Street is back close to its old Bull peaks, the ASX 200 made its own milestone last week - closing above the 50% recovery barrier for the first time since the bottom of the Bear plunge in 2009.

And there appears to be more room to run ... I'd thought that primary Saturn line at 4985 would provide stronger Resistance; it'll be interesting to see if it converts to Support during the next correction."

Well, we got the more room to run ... and then primary Saturn converted to Support. Ahem! IF the correction is finished.

From an "eyeball" viewpoint, it looks as if this is probably going to be a correction of the same order as the four-week pullback last October/November. If that's so, it'll be followed by a further, strong rally ... and that's when we'd start looking for signs of a Canary croaking. At the moment, it's still in fine voice with a sweet song.

One item of housekeeping before I wander off ... there's now a dedicated Archives section for this year's old stuff. Red button under the Eye!  ( Eye of RA report: Week beginning February 25, 2013 )

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...

Americans skittish ... others not so much

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 12, 2012

The big astrological event for the coming week is the Solar Eclipse New Moon in Scorpio.

Two editions ago I published an historical chart showing the impact of Solar Eclipses on the SP500 - and caution again that there is no truly reliable prediction that can be made about the effect on markets.

The path of this one takes in Indonesia, northern Australia and New Zealand and into the mid-Pacific.

Since it's in Scorpio, ruled by Mars and Pluto, and since it's directly above the so-called Ring of Fire, there's probably an increased likelihood of seismic disturbances in the region.

However, let's talk about Wall Street's seismic disturbances. The Mercury Rx station had little impact on the vote - except in Florida, which used not be able to print proper ballot papers, but got over that problem and now just needs to learn how to count them.

We'll spend some time this weekend pawing over the entrails of the SP500 to see whether, and what sort of, bounce might be expected.

First, let's remind ourselves of where we are in terms of the big picture.

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Above we have the long-range monthly. The Jupiter-in-Taurus bars, which have a very close historical relationship with Bull market tops, are in dark green. And we discussed a couple of times recently what might be happening with the NDX in this regard.

But, what we really want to do here is just get an "eyeball" view of the current state of affairs with the broad-based SP500. The index briefly poked its head back into the irrational exuberance zone of the two previous Bull peaks ... and closed out last week, testing the first line of defence at the lower horizontal line of technical Support.

Nothing out of the ordinary so far ... though we have been chatting recently about the growing danger signs within the American indices.

Two editions ago, I published a couple of versions of the same chart, indicating where the Pollyanna index was likely to head if prices continued the correction.

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This was the first of them, showing Pollyanna behaving relatively routinely within a rising pitchfork since the August/October plunge a year ago.

And the next chart is simply a close-up ...

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The last time we looked at these charts, I made the point the index was trying to hold the upper red line of a Fibonacci-calculated zone within the bottom half of the fork and that if it failed to hold, the Bulls would mount a fight at the 1390 and/or 1370s levels.

And that's where we're at. So, the index is at an important horizontal level on the long-range monthly AND at an important level within the internal Fibonacci bands of a daily chart.

We'll look next at a couple of weekly charts. Below is a Bi-BB. Price found support on Friday at the mid-level of the lower band, which also happens to be close to a routine Fibonacci Rx level of the whole rally over the past year.

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And golly-gee-whizz, ditto for Polly's Weekly Planets chart.

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Okay. So, we know that there is a statistical tendency for New Moons to coincide with a near-term High. However, we also know from the Solar Eclipse chart from the October 29 edition, that eclipses can distort the statistical tendency ... and this may be one of those times.

I mentioned last weekend during a brief discussion about Mercury Retrograde that ... "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 ..."

So, because Pollyanna is hitting Support levels - technical, Fibonacci, or planetary - on monthly, weekly and daily charts, we need to be aware of the potential for a bounce to develop in the coming week.

And, perhaps especially, because other major indices didn't go into the same sort of overly dramatic swoon as Miss Pollyanna.

Below is the Footsie Weekly Planets chart. The index traded within largely the same range as it has been for many weeks.

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Ditto for Germany's DAX index, below. In both indices, there was a break of planetary support which was recovered by the end of the week. The only note of caution - apart from the continued deterioration of the MACD signal - is the appearance of Bearish engulfing bars.

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Singapore is below, still deciding whether to bounce from, or breakdown below, a vital Neptune line at 2995.

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And the Hang Seng in Hong Kong dived into a Saturn level on its Weekly Planets chart (below).

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The ASX 200 basically didn't go anywhere and continues to hold Uranus support at 4450ish.

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In signing off last weekend, I said: "Regardless of what happens on Tuesday, have at least some faith in the Old Gods. In Bulls and Bears, through Goldmanesque manipulation and BenDraghi interventions, the pulse of the markets beats to coloured spaghetti trails marked by the passage of planets."

Eh. And so they did. Again. As usual. Of course, we're all educated adults and we don't actually believe in astrology and Old Gods. Do we?!?

Enough of the waffle for this week. Don't be surprised by an imminent bounceback. Virtually no major markets other than Wall Street rose so far back into irrational exuberance territory before the correction started; virtually no major markets have swooned as much as The Vacuous Troll, Pollyanna.

And, regardless of which way things go, the charts published last weekend and this one show the probable range targets - upside and down.

Oh! Thank you to Praveen and Andy, who wrote with suggestions about where to find data for those indices Yahoo has dropped from its historical price data. I'm not terribly good at formatting spreadsheets and need to fiddle with date formats and a few other things.

However, hopefully I'll be able to bring the Indian and Canadian market charts up-to-date when I get it all sorted out.

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

November price ranges for indices

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 5, 2012

The USA goes into election mode this week with neither the incumbent nor the challenger clearly ahead.

And with the Old Gods' messenger, Mercury, going into Retrograde mode on election day, there's every chance the result will be murky.

Already, lawyers for both camps are ready to roll in key swing States like Ohio, Florida and Virginia.

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.

We saw it in action last week when Venus made Uranus/Pluto aspects and Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc, forcing a 2-day closure of the NYSE.

It would take a much better astrologer than I to accurately predict what to expect in the coming week ... and I'm not going to try.

Instead, we will go through the exercise we did early last month and concentrate on defining the probable range for the month ahead.

It will be a critical month because the Dow is flirting with a trendline vital to continuation of the Bull run. Failure to hold it would most likely be confirmation that the next Bear has emerged.

This is normally the time of year, with the Sun moving towards the optimistic sign of Sagittarius, that kicks off the Santa Claus rally.

But, the entrails aren't looking so good. As we can see on the chart above, the DJI has declined into the trendline drawn from last year's August/October plunge to the June correction low ... and neither the fast MACD nor the long-range Canary is looking happy.

And the more broadly-based SP500 continues to play at the pointy end of what we've discussed a few times in the past few months as being a likely Ending Diagonal pattern ... which is extremely Bearish once the downside of the wedge is penetrated decisively.

There is, as yet, no clear and obvious negative divergence from Pollyanna's long-range Canary (the blue line). We have been watching and waiting for a lower peak to occur in that oscillator simultaneous with a higher price high to give the sort of warning it gave at the 2007 Bull top.

Nevertheless, the warning signs are there. Both the short-term (green) and intermediate-range Canaries (red line) have already diverged negatively. Just as they did when Wall Street was topping at the end of the previous Bull run. The danger continues to build.

Now, let's take a look at planetary charts for various indices to gauge the probable price ranges for November.

October turned out to be the first negative month for Pollyanna since May. But, price was largely contained within the range defined by two Neptune lines on her long-range planetary chart. We've discussed this chart fairly frequently and the implications are obvious.

If there's going to be a Santa Claus rally into the end of the year, the probable targets are 1522 or 1562. And if the index breaks down, rather than breaks out, all the major downside stalling points are listed.

For the moment, Polly needs to hold the 1410 level ... and the Nasdaq 100 needs to continue holding the Uranus line around 2650.

The NDX pretty much did last week what it did the week before ... minor breaks of the Saturn/Uranus planetary price lines, but finishing the week with price contained within the barriers.

If there's a Nasdaq breakdown this month, 2443 seems the most likely target. If it's breakout, it'll be 2940 and above by the end of the year.

Germany's DAX index is above, having spent the past 2 months in a trading range, with the downside routinely stopped by the Old God of boundaries, Saturn. From a technical viewpoint, the odds probably favour a Bullish flag pattern - with one rally left.

Last weekend, we discussed once again the potential rally signal in the FTSE as it declined into the influence of a rising Sun line.

 A bit wobbly on Wednesday, but it worked for the FTSE, even if not as a pointer to what might happen on Wall Street.

 It'll open next week with downward pressure from a falling Sun line.

And which of the two influences it decides to follow is likely to be impacted by what happens with the elections in America.

The FTSE Weekly Planets chart is below, showing the price targets likely to be hit this month, regardless of the direction of the break. A break which is highly likely given the number of weeks the FTSE has been trapped in a narrow range.

Our next chart, below, is for India's Nifty 50. It is actually missing a couple of weekly bars because Yahoo Finance has now dropped historical price coverage for that index, as well as for the Canadian indices and the DJI. I'd like to continue coverage of the Indian markets, so if any readers from Mumbai know where I can find replacement data, please drop me a line under the "contact" button in the main navigation menu.

For the moment, the Nifty is still trading the 5690s range highlighted the last time I published this chart in early October.

The Singapore exchange is above. Technically, it is trying to base on top of the previous consolidation, which tracked that grey Neptune line currently priced just a tad below 3000. You can see it also has a tendency to use the Saturn lines as a base and I've used those lines to try to define the probable November range. The upside Resistance is in the mid 3200s and the "normal" downside would be around 2953.

The Hang Seng has been on a roll, taking its cues from a potential bottoming pattern in the Shanghai composite. You can probably calculate the price of the Saturn lines by just using a crosshair to previous price bars, but I've marked the likely upper limit at 23,590.

I think I'm also missing data now for the Shanghai Composite index, charted below, so the full range of the last couple of price bars is probably inaccurate.

However, the data I have still suggests China is trying to bottom. The oscillator is trying to creep back into neutral territory - and with some Bullish divergence; not just in the short-term either. The oscillator bottomed out at a higher trough during the recent price lows, compared with its performance in September, 2011 ... when price was actually several hundred points higher.

And finally, Auntie - the ASX 200.

So, just to recap briefly. The danger continues to grow in the major American indices and the astrological weather ahead continues to mirror what the actual weather was like on the US East Coast last week. In fact, it could get a lot worse later in November when Mars sets off the Uranus/Pluto discord again.

Regardless of what happens on Tuesday, have at least some faith in the Old Gods. In Bulls and Bears, through Goldmanesque manipulation and BenDraghi interventions, the pulse of the markets beats to coloured spaghetti trails marked by the passage of planets.

All we really need to know is where the milestone markers are. And now you have them!

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

A heightened sense of danger

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 22, 2012

While key DNA markers normally obvious at The Top are still missing in some Western stock indices, I'm getting the sense those markets have suddenly become dangerous.

For the past 6 weeks, the broad-based Wall Street index, the SP500, has been stuck below the 1468 level marked as a key barrier on my long-range Old Gods chart.

We've remained open to the possibility of a breakout to new highs at 1522, or even a blow-off to around the 1560 level.

And the reason we've constantly looked at that possibility is the lack of a negative divergence signal from the long-range Canary on Pollyanna's monthly charts.

A few editions ago, I pointed out that key divergence signal had started to become very obvious in the Nasdaq 100, the NDX. It may now also be starting to show in the Dow Jones Industrials.

In both of those indices, the heavy-lifting over the past couple of years has been carried on the shoulders of very few stocks ... like Caterpillar and Apple.

We will take a close look this weekend at the alarm bells going off in the NDX and the general state of some other major indices.

Normally, I refuse to be jerked around by one day's movement in any index. But, I'm getting a sense that something fundamental has changed following Friday's performance on Wall Street.

It's true the drop happened with the Moon in Sagittarius and I said last weekend: "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."

So, even though we did get a wide-range fear day down, I still can't shake the sense there has been a change at a deeper level. The week began for Miss Pollyanna pretty much in accordance with my expectations. I outlined two important scenarios for Miss Polly on Monday, or Tuesday, which would prompt a price bounceback.

I said: "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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We can see what happened in the chart above - and there was no need to wait for Tuesday.

Because, on Monday, Miss Polly did make a decisive close above the 1434 level and re-entered rally mode for most of the week.

But with the Moon in a Sagittarian-exaggerated fear mode, Friday's freefall wiped out almost all of the gains.

Now, maybe it's just a one-off, one-day comeback for Chicken Little.

But, what if it's not?

Firstly, let's remind ourselves of where the Pollyanna index is in terms of its long-range planetary price markers.

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There is nothing out of the ordinary in the chart above. Well, apart from the fact the support and resistance lines happen to be determined by the position of a few rocks and giant gas balls Out There.

But, from a technical viewpoint, it still all looks hunky dory. Here we are two-thirds of the way through October and price is still largely within the spike part of September's range.

But, if you look at it on a weekly, it has been 6 weeks below the peak of that spike. That suggests it's either accumulation ... or distribution. In other words, the Big Boys have been slowly stocking up for another rally ... or they've been unloading hand-over-fist to anyone who believed Goldman's "buy, buy, buy" memo.

In the meantime, the NDX has been screaming "danger, danger, danger".

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We've discussed the importance of 50% Fibonacci Retracement levels in the past and noted the danger it posed on the NDX. We now have quite severe negative divergence between the long-range Canary peak in March and the much lower peak it posted last month when price briefly broke above the 50% FiboRx level.

But the divergence is more dangerous when we look at the peak the Canary made in 2007 and its performance since the 2009 bottom.

As y'know, in terms of astrological predictions, I expected markets to top out in March and go into freefall until at least October. So, these days I don't go out much because that much egg on your face isn't a good look in public.

In spite of that, the apparent failure of the long-range Jupiter-in-Taurus top is beginning to look more like a regional variation on the theme, rather than a broken signal.

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Here's another look at the NDX monthly, with the dark green bars showing the periods of Jupiter in the sign of Taurus. On the left of the chart, we can see the Nasdaq's blow-off, all-time high. As Jupiter entered Taurus, the market launched into the heavens.

We then got a secondary peak with Jupiter in early Gemini ... 3 monthly bars past the last green Jupiter bar.

And now ...

Yes, it's starting to look disturbingly familiar ... a marginal new peak 3 bars past the last of the Taurean Jupiter bars.

And London's FTSE index lends support to the NDX signals. There, the post-June rally has still not taken out the Taurean Jupiter high of March, nor the 2011 rally peaks.

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So, we seem to have arrived at an interesting place ... and the question is whether the American Presidential cycle, whose 4Q performance I touched on last weekend, has actually displaced the Jupiter-in-Taurus signature, or has merely temporarily delayed its onset. It's a vitally important question because if it's the latter scenario, we may already have seen The Top. There's no surefire confirmation yet; Bernanke and Draghi may yet drop more make-believe moneybags into the path of the tsunami. So, here's an update of the Weekly Planets charts for various indices to help guide your decisions.  

FTSE:

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DAX:

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ASX 200

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India's Nifty

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Singapore:

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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