A major shift in planetary energies

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 July 22, 2013

Shift in planetary energy

Wall Street completed its Grand Trine week with the SP500 closing at a new all-time High.

But the rest of the world did not. It has been one of those relatively rare instances where American markets rallied all the way through the Mercury Retrograde cycle.

And that's part of what now leaves everyone just a little more vulnerable.

Because this week brings a major mood shift as various planets change signs, or direction. The Sun goes into Leo, Venus into Virgo; Uranus has gone Retrograde and Mercury is turning Direct again.

Mars will conjunct Jupiter, providing a last burst of energy to the Grand Trine involving Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune. By the end of the week, the energy shift of the planets could turn markets from optimism to pessimism.

The Sun will square Saturn and Mars will start igniting the Uranus/Pluto square again ... as a precursor to Jupiter making the same aspects in what I mentioned last weekend Ray Merriman calls a bankruptcy signature.

Since we've been discussing the danger that markets are now in the process of topping-out the Bull run, I'll publish some more targets for non-American markets this weekend.

We will deal first, however, with a little more of The Spooky Stuff. Probably the two most significant transits in the immediate future are the Mars conjunction to Jupiter followed by Mars square Uranus.

Many of you may have heard dire, dire warnings of ... gasp*shock*horror ... "the Mars-Uranus crash cycle". I have dealt with this before. It's carp. And, yes, that's a misspelling. Mars makes some aspect with Uranus a couple of times a year ... and the hard aspects have no regular, reliable track record of producing a crash. Not even a little one.

In the chart below I have marked the Mars-Jupiter conjunctions with thick blue bars and Mars-Uranus squares with thick red ones. We have eight examples of Mars-Uranus squares ... and not a single one of them produced any sort of crash. In fact, one could argue the reverse.

There is more danger of Mars-Jupiter conjunctions producing an intermediate top.

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Either one of these aspects does carry enough punch to turn markets in a new direction. BUT! Time and Price have to "meet" precisely before one can predict a change with any degree of certainty.

I was watching Pollyanna, the SP500, and the ASX 200 quite closely last week to see if either of them intended making that "meeting". They didn't.

But, they do have another chance early this week. For Pollyanna, the two key Price levels are at 1704 and 1654. Allow about $3 either side of those numbers.

IF Miss Pollyanna jumps to 1704 and immediately starts to back down strongly, get out of Dodge! This is the Time & Price meeting place in space for the whole Mars-Jupiter-Saturn-Neptune interchange.

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It's interesting that Miss Polly was not the only index to studiously avoid that meeting last week. So close ... and, yet, so far, was also the case for the ASX 200.

Auntie ASX just stopped in mid-air, flatly refusing to go to a meeting that could have forced the index to change direction.

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And it was mid-air, which is a little more obvious in my personal planetary chart for the ASX below. Had either of these indices hit those exact price levels and failed to break through, it would have been a very bad sign for further gains in the intermediate future.

The Time & Price meeting place is activated again early this coming week and the action - and reaction - will have to be watched very closely if Polly hits the very early 1700s, or 5042ish for Auntie.

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 Failure to hit the exact Price levels, on Time, makes it a lot more difficult to determine a significant change of direction.

Now, I showed Bull target levels for Pollyanna, the FTSE and the ASX last weekend and indicated I'd update charts for other indices in the coming weeks.

This weekend, we'll look at India, Singapore and Shanghai.

INDIA

Our first chart is a long-range monthly for the Sensex. It is once again approaching the key level in the 20,200s ... and with a medium-term oscillator looking distinctly unhappy. Obviously, to eliminate the danger implied by making a triple-top, the index needs to break through the long-range barrier decisively.

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The Weekly Planets chart for the Nifty is below. It ended last week retesting a Saturn-Neptune price zone. It's a key level the index must break through decisively to trigger the final potential targets for India's Bull.

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If it can do that, the next danger zone is in the range from about 6200 to the mid 6400s. This is the range of the planetary line-up which stopped the two previous Bull peaks. If the Nifty gets through that barrier, the target becomes the 7000s.

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 SINGAPORE

The STI is also approaching a key barrier. I used the American charts last week to show how Big Bird and the medium-range oscillator tend to give advance warning when markets are making either a long-range top, or bottom.

And there are further examples below. The double-bottom in Price terms of the early 2000s Bear showed clear positive divergence in the oscillator ... as the run into the 2007 Bull peak showed clear negative divergence.

And then, another obvious case of positive divergence at the 2009 Bear bottom. And I repeat what I've been saying about Pollyanna ... we are not yet receiving warning sirens that suggest we are in dire and imminent danger. There is some relatively mild divergence in the current state of the oscillator versus price. The sirens are starting to go off ... but they're not yet becoming strident.

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Now, while the chart above shows a technical level of significant resistance in the early 3300s, the STI's Weekly Planets chart, below, offers three higher targets if the topping process is going to continue into the August-October timeframe.

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CHINA

It's difficult to get a read on Shanghai, which continues to test the validity of the Bear low. Mild positive divergence in the oscillator seems to be trying to build, but so far can't manage to get traction.

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But the index needs to recover the Neptune level at around 2056 on the long-range planetary chart below ... or it's in danger of plunging another 25%.

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Okay, for those of you unskilled in technical mischief, you can do a right-click on any of these charts and save them as an image to consult in the coming weeks. Yes, I know ... India, Singapore, China. Not a lot of technical ineptitude going on there.

Keep a close eye on what prices Polly and Auntie get up to on Monday/Tuesday. Loud warning sirens if Polly especially goes to around 1704 and poops her panties! If she goes through ... decisively ... we'll probably go back into goo-goo/ga-ga/gush mode.

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  Sale price 1/2 off!

• 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!
Sale Price $10.00

Targets for The Top of the Bull market

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 July 15, 2013

".. astrological expectations never over-ride
technical conditions"

We will spend some time this weekend reviewing the growing danger signals that the Bull run is topping out.

I indicated last weekend: "There is a strong chance, at least from an astrological viewpoint, that the next downleg of the multi-week correction is due to start."

However, the normal Mercury Retrograde spurt-and-reverse cycle has not played out.

I did also say: "There is some chance the correction is over and the bounce will continue. July tends to be a stronger month for the Wall Street indices than June."

However, repeating that now is just mealy-mouthed arse-covering. Basically, I got it wrong. I'd thought the normal tendency of the Merc Rx cycle, combined with the statistical negativity of the New Moon to Full Moon period would drag on stock markets and it didn't.

There is some danger everyone will do a complete "re-think" when Mercury goes Direct again at the end of this week, especially since the Grand Trine involving Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune becomes exact mid-week. I dealt with this recently and the full report can be found in the Archives.

Once that aspect finishes, the next major one will be Jupiter making a T-square with Uranus and Pluto, an aspect renowned financial astrologer Ray Merriman describes as a "classical" bankruptcy signature.

But, I am much less concerned with The Spooky Stuff  than I am with the warning sirens starting to go off in the technical condition of the markets - especially on Wall Street where everyone is hooked on the cheap money the US Federal Reserve has been pumping into the financial system.

Every few years the May to October timeframe produces market behaviour which turns out to be a major, long-range turning point. And this may well be one of those times.

So, let's begin. And, courtesy of the Incredible Charts software, we'll start with a quarterly chart of the Dow Jones Industrials. At an eyeball glance, the DJI appears to be making a multi-decade megaphone pattern. And it has the uberBears drooling. They believe the Dow is getting set to drop not just to the lower line of the "jaws of death", but will plunge down through it.

Maybe, maybe not. That's something we'll have to try to judge sometime in the future; not now. What is concerning is that these new price highs in the DJI are not being fully-endorsed by the mid-range oscillator. I've placed an orange horizontal at its recent peak - and it's a level that has shown up as marking out a topping pattern several times.

For the moment, the oscillator is maintaining its own uptrend angle from the Bear bottom in 2009. But it is starting to falter.

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 We'll go next to a DJI monthly chart and use the 50CCI ... what I call the long-range Canary, or the Big Bird. We've been watching and waiting for a while now for Big Bird to start to diverge from the price action. If you look at the 2007 topping pattern, I've put a thick, red diagonal on the May-October price action of that year ... and while it went north, Big Bird went south during that period.

For the moment, the DJI's price continues at an angle which is too far, too fast to be sustained ... and while the price of the index has climbed above the 2007 peak, Big Bird has not reached the lofty levels it did then; which is long-range negative divergence in itself.

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Next we go to the weekly chart. And it's here we see the warning sirens are starting to become quite strident. Divergence between the price and the weekly version of Big Bird became very, very obvious ... and the warning is not simply that Big Bird went down the falling red diagonal while price rode the climbing red diagonal in that timeframe.

You'll see a thin, orange horizontal in both price and oscillator areas. Price came down and turned back up after reaching the level of an earlier consolidation. Big Bird didn't; it plunged through. It did not lose the +100 level, which is near-term Bullish.

But! The warning sirens are going off and week-by-week, they're starting to get a little louder.

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 In 2007, markets put in a volatile topping pattern from May through to October; in 2011 they plunged during that period. It's a timeframe which needs to be watched carefully - especially if a Bull market top is now being put in place.

And we can see the potential for that to happen in Pollyanna, the SP500, as well as the DJI. While the Dow nears the top line of the megaphone, Miss Polly is rising again to challenge the top of her channel - a redline barrier with a history of producing sharp price reversals when it's breached.

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 Monthly Big Bird has not started to screech horribly in the chart above - though it's still below its 2007 peak, with the price of the index higher. That's not exactly a sweet, clear song.

And weekly Big Bird in the chart below is now getting distinctly unhappy.

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 I've been stressing lately that the danger signs are increasing; which doesn't mean that The Top has already been reached. Well, not for Wall Street. I think some other indices have probably arrived at their Bull highs and are now just marking time, waiting for Wall Street to face the reality that printing money to prop-up stock prices is ... "irrational exuberance". Again. Slow learners.

To find out exactly where Miss Pollyanna might top out this Bull run, I do need to turn to The Spooky Stuff ... my long-range planetary price chart for the index.

I had fully expected this run to stop, or at least stall heavily, in the Pluto/Node range from 1519 to 1574. The state of the Birds never did agree with me. As I've said often: astrological expectations never over-ride technical conditions. And they didn't this time, either.

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Anyway, the chart above gives three clear potential target areas for the Bull to exhaust himself at. Over the course of the next few weeks, I'll try to update the targets for other indices, including the major Europeans, India and Asia.

Fairly regularly, I update what I call my Weekly Planets charts for various indices - and if you're not taking advantage of them, you're mad. It's really not that hard. You do need to be able to use an oscillator in conjunction with the price targets to know when the technical signals for a turn are obvious.

I had a truly irritating email during the week from someone who asked: "What's an oscillator?" Well, darling, if you're too damn dumb, or too damn lazy, to spend a few minutes going through these FREE weekly reports, don't waste my bloody time.

For those of you do read and seek to learn - and that, I know, is about 99.98% of readers - here's a quick how-to using the FTSE WP and ASX200 WP charts.

Given the level of negative divergence in the Big Bird as the FTSE temporarily breached the 6849 level, it was a fairly safe place to Short that index. There was no early positive divergence signal as the index breached 6047, though the rapid recovery did indicate it was a reasonable place to go Long again.

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It was pretty much a case of "ditto" for the 200, where there was oscillator divergence at the price high and a small case of positive divergence at the price low.

Remember these are weekly charts and the dailies can be used for fine-tuning Entry and Exit points ... Just as I did earlier in the Dow charts. The quarterly shows the danger signs starting, but not strident ... while the weekly shows just how strongly the klaxons are starting to growl.

Using the Weekly Planets charts for intermediate-range moves is just a variation. They set the potential targets, but you use daily charts to tell you whether your anticipated trade is ready for Entry or Exit. And once the move starts, in either direction, you have ideal prices to use as the base for Loss Stop provisions.

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Okay, that's a wrap for this weekend. Frankly, I have no idea what the short-term direction is ... and I believe Benign Ben is due to make an appearance before the House this week. Personally, I live in dread anytime Ben is presented with an opportunity to "clarify" the Fed's current position!
 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  Sale price 1/2 off!

• 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!
Sale Price $10.00

Gold ... and WPs for Western 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 April 15, 2013

Gold plunged dramatically on Friday, ostensibly because Cyprus needs to unload $525 million of its gold reserves to help pay for the island's bail-out.

The plunge came only a day after Goldman Sachs urged customers to Short gold, with a target of $1450.

In the background is Germany's order to repatriate its French and USA bullion back to home soil.

Reportedly, the US Federal Reserve has told the Germans it will take 7 years to ship the 300 tons.  That's a bit odd, given the number of ships sitting idle. And it makes you wonder whether Pussy Galore could be bothered raiding Fort Knox these days.

Still, we should probably leave the conspiracy theories alone. The Spooky Stuff is quite weird enough ... and we'll be taking a look at some of that in relation to gold in a moment or two.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street stock indices play out the normal April strength while most other major world indices have been correcting for weeks.

In the coming week, the Sun, Venus and Mars all move out of Aries and into Taurus. Venus, ruler of boodle, is the only one of them literally at home in Taurus, which is a far more stable energy than the volatility of Arien fire.

I'll publish updates of planetary charts for a few of the Western indices in this edition, but we'll deal first with gold. Last week was marked in Forecast 2013 as a potential major turning point for gold prices.

And it turned out to be one where major planetary support at 1518 was broken with ease.

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I mentioned last weekend that I am indebted to American astrologer, Pat Hardy, for sharing this chart of gold, timed for the first sale of the modern era when legal restrictions on Americans owning gold were lifted. Pat runs the Energies, Trends, Cycles website at: http://www.pathardytrends.com

She produced this "birth" chart for gold trades after getting access to the hand-written logs from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

You'll probably have to do a bit of scrolling here to understand what I'm talking about, especially if your knowledge of astrology is scant. The inner wheel contains the planets for the first trade and the outer wheel shows the current position of transiting planets.

In the slice of the pie marked with a 2, note that Uranus, the Sun, Mars and Venus were all in Aries last week opposing gold's natal Pluto at 09.13 Libra (the 8th House). Uranus in hard aspect to Pluto - a theme we've been talking about for a long time now, though in a broader context.

In the original birth chart, the Sun and Pluto are squared ... so transiting oppositions to Pluto also square gold's natal Sun at 09.33 Capricorn. And, of course, the transiting Pluto, is conjuncting that Sun. Short version ... it's all a big deal; there's a lot of volatile energy and since Uranus is in the transit mix there will be "surprise" breakouts AND breakdowns and "normal" support/resistance levels will be sliced through like warm butter.

And the volatility is not over yet, because with the Sun, Venus and Mars now moving into Taurus, they'll all oppose gold's natal Uranus at 01.52 Scorpio (9th House).

However, there is also other symbolism at work - and that relates to the position of transiting Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter is currently finishing a transit of gold's 4th House and will move into the 5th, which is the house with general rulership of gold and, specifically, of financial speculation. It's the gambler's house ... and the FatBoy just lurvs a good roll of the dice and spin of the wheel!

Transiting Saturn is at 09.21 Scorpio in the 9th House, moving towards a conjunction with gold's Midheaven. Now, in the chart of an individual there is a time to put yourself Out There and a time when progress in the outer world is extremely difficult. The difficult time is when Saturn travels through what Grant Lewi used to call "the obscure sector" - the first quadrant of the chart from the Ascendant to the start of the 4th House.

Once it moves past the 4th House, it is a time when we make rapid progress in the world ... and, with most people, Saturn conjuncting the Midheaven means a major career peak. The reality is it's a time when we get the recognition we deserve. For a few, that can mean ... Do not pass go, do not collect $200, Go directly to jail. Saturn's like that. Hey, we're talking about an Old God who ate his own babies!

Anyway, my point here is that both Jupiter and Saturn are past "the obscure sector" and rising in gold's natal chart. While Saturn conjunct the MC gives you the public position you deserve, Jupiter conjuncting the MC suddenly brings an unbelievable rise out-of-the-blue.

So, while the current transits to gold's natal Sun/Pluto square ... and to Uranus ... predict high-levels of volatility and sudden moves, the overall symbolism from the Jupiter/Saturn transit positions means it is very unlikely gold's bull run is finished.

And now that we've reviewed les Spookies, let's look at the technical conditions, starting with the big picture view. Below is a log-scale chart of greenback gold. See the big spike on the left as American investors piled into gold once the legal restrictions were lifted.

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From about the middle of the chart, we see the modern Bull run. The first significant correction lost 22% in 5 months; the second lost 29.5% in 7 months. And for the past 19 months we've been in a sideways shuffle/correction which, at Friday's close, brought down the price by 21.7%. We've had an overbalance of Time, but not of Price - not so far!

The Canary, in this case a medium-range 20CCI, has plunged to a trough level not seen for a very long time - and I've put in a grey line so you can more easily see how this trough compares with previous ones. Taking a cue from the oscillator alone, this plunge is not finished.

So, what about the planetary charts? Well, below is a weekly. The lines currently priced at 1542 and 1518 have been important before, both as Resistance and as Support.

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Goldman Sachs mentioned a Short target of 1450 - and there is a planetary line at that level, albiet not a particularly strong one.

Next chart is the daily ...

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And the interesting thing about the daily is that despite the depth of the price plunge, the Canary has not fallen so deeply as its previous trough.

It means the probability of a bounceback is strong - but may not last long.

Okay ... onto the stock markets. Firstly, the SP500.

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We've had a breakout above the orange Node line at 1572. I had thought it would hold for a larger correction, as most other major indices have endured. But, Pollyanna is still all goo-goo/ga-ga. It's not shown on this chart, but the breakout arrived on Wednesday when overnight trade forced a gap Open above the line.

If it's a false break, Chicken Little will be back real soon. If it's not, then the index may be embarked on a run between Uranus/Pluto planetary barriers. This long-running Santa rally began with a touch of the Uranus/Pluto zone I've marked with a yellow oval at the bottom of the chart.

Along the way, it stalled at and then had a false break of Uranus/Pluto and corrected down into Saturn ... Twice; Both of which I've marked with circled 1s and 2s. So, the target for a third repeat performance would be 1608 to 1610.

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The Nasdaq 100 Weekly Planet chart is above. What we'd thought was a potential Head&Shoulders pattern developing may now have morphed into something else (as they often do!). The fast MACD though, either in its signal line peaks or the height of its histograms, grows increasingly unhappy with the rally.

Over to Germany ...

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And onto the FTSE ...

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And, finally, Auntie ... the ASX 200

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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!