REVIEW AND PREVIEW

Last week’s market activity was classical Uranus/Pluto symbolism, combined with the ongoing mutable T-square involving Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. In other words, world equity markets were all over the place – up strongly one day, down sharply the next, with successive signs of bullishness followed by bearishness.

The new moon in Aries took place on April 7. It was conjunct Uranus (and square Pluto), although the exact conjunction between the Sun and Uranus in Aries would not occur until Saturday, April 9. Still, it corresponds to world and financial conditions that reflect the principles of Uranus at least three days before and after. How does Uranus behave? Erratically. Uranus (like Mercury retrograde, for Uranus is the higher octave of Mercury) has no respect for rules or boundaries, like support and resistance, or bullish and bearish signals. When Uranus is highlighted in the heavens, as it is now, financial markets can reverse their recent trends, or they can break through support and resistance, as in a breakout. Or they can break through support or resistance, and then reverse, as in a “fake out.” One of the key principles associated with Uranus is “unpredictable.” Another is “sudden changes,” as witnessed in last week’s financial markets.

The mutable T-square has been discussed at length in this column, as well as in our YouTube video series on “The Incredible Spring Lineup of Geocosmic Signatures” (go to YouTube and type in the search section for “Raymond Merriman”). We are filming Part 3 of this series this weekend and should be ready for viewing by Sunday, April 10. The very concept of “mutable’ implies “changes.” Nothing is fixed. Everything is up for adjustment, fine-tuning, even reversal. In financial markets, we postulated that the period from March through May would witness changes of trend and sentiment every two weeks or so. When Uranus is also highlighted, as it is right now, changes may happen more frequently - every day or two. Last week, for instance, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down triple digits on Tuesday, up triple digits on Wednesday, down triple digits on Thursday, and then up triple digits in the first hour on Friday, before giving back those triple digit gains the rest of the day.

Gold and Silver held up surprisingly well last week. However, Gold is very much like the DJIA in a charting sense. The DJIA, for instance, recently broke above a downward trendline connecting its all-time high of May 19, 2015, to its highs of November and December. This trendline was around 17,650. Once three-point trendlines are broken, it usually means that market is breaking in the direction of the breakout. However, it can also mean that the price level of the breakout becomes a fulcrum point around which that market will trade above and below by a certain amount. In the case of the DJIA, it broke out above 17,650 on March 30, on its way to a high of 17,811 the next day, or about 160+ points. It then reversed and fell back below 17,650, on its way down to 17,484 on April 7, or about 160+ points below the former trendline, which now acts as a midpoint of a “range-bound” market for the moment. This is a market trying to decide if it wants to be bullish (as suggested by the recent stimuli actions of central banks, and all the contributions being made to retirement plans at the end of this tax season), or bearish, as suggested by several bearish technical signals, such as last week’s intermarket bearish divergence between the DJIA and S&P (S&P futures made a new cycle high last week, but the DJIA did not).

Gold is exhibiting a similar chart setup. Like the DJIA, Gold had formed a three-point downward trendline on its weekly chart, connecting the highs going back to August 2013, to the high February 2016. It finally broke above that trendline, when it was about 1245-1250 in the first week of March. Once broken, Gold rallied to its recent high of 1287.80 March 11. However, instead of continuing the breakout upwards, it reversed and fell back to 1206, this creating a range of about $40.00 above and below the breakout point of 1245. Will the DJIA and Gold continue trading around those fulcrum points of 17,650 and 1245 respectively? Or will they resume the direction of their upside breakouts? Or will they reverse and start to decline in earnest? We may know the answer shortly as both Mars and Pluto turn retrograde April 17-18.

 

SHORT-TERM GEOCOMICS & LONG-TERM THOUGHTS

“If God wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.” – Jay Leno.

“… we do not believe we have the authority to address this inversion question through administrative action. If we did, we would be doing more.” –Jack Lew, U.S. Treasury Secretary in 2014, “Treasury Is Wrong about Our Merger and Growth,” Ian Read, Wall Street Journal, April 7, 2016.

“Mr. Obama wants to help his fellow Democrats with one more lawless treasury rewrite of longstanding U.S. tax law. Twice before, in 2014 and 2015, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew simply issued notices that changed the rules to make it more difficult for a merging company to adopt a foreign legal address- so called corporate inversions. But those attempts flopped (until this week) – because the business incentive is so great to escape America’s destructive combined state and federal corporate tax rate of more than 39% (highest in the world).”- Wall Street Journal editorial. “Jack Lew’s Corporate Tax Ambush,” April 6, 2016.

“Many governments, including ours (USA), overtax their citizens to feed their own insatiable need for money. Then the legal thieves running the government and their cronies, unwilling to abide the tax levels they created, move their wealth off shore to places like Panama.” - Daniel Henninger, “Panama Bernie,” Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2016.

“To wit, the story here (about leaks of the Panama Papers) isn’t about tax evaders and offshore accounts, deplorable as they may be. It’s about public polices and incentives that make a career in politics an expedient route to personal enrichment.” Bret Stephens, “ ‘C’ is for Corruption,” Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2016.

I have often wondered how politicians became millionaires after – and very soon after - they were elected to public service. Most were not wealthy when they stared their career in politics. The explosive leak of the Panama Papers last week sheds a huge light on this shadow world of offshore accounts that allow many world political leaders to avoid the very taxes that they create and thus force their citizens to pay. This is so Pluto-in-Capricorn. And right now, the Sun is in conjunction to Uranus and square to Pluto, as Mars and Pluto are both about to turn retrograde. As much as this is a Mars period, it is also a Pluto-in-Capricorn period. Financial markets are prone to sudden changes, as explosive news stories are announced. It is all Uranus (sudden) and Pluto (corruption regarding tax avoidance and secret offshore bank accounts in order to avoid detection by one’s government - the same government that wants to punish corporations trying to save money for their investors, for research to stay competitive in world markets, through “inversions”). This expose’ of political corruption and hypocrisy is coming into its fullness now, because Pluto is right in the middle of its 16-year sojourn through Capricorn. There is more - much more - to come, and along with it, more resignations as demanded by the populace of their leaders, as witnessed by the first casualty of the leak last week in Iceland.

As stated in last week’s column, “We are now in between the first and second stages (of four stages) described in our recent YouTube video on “The Incredible Spring Lineup of Geocosmic Signatures.” The second stage will manifest April 17-18, +/- ten days, when Mars and Pluto both turn retrograde. This is a particularly challenging combination, for both represent principles that are forceful and relentless.” Pluto can be forceful, coercive, and pertain to such matters as taxes, cover-ups, secrecy, and –especially in Capricorn (2008-2024) – corruption .

We are in the early stages of a long time band containing 15 geocosmic signatures related to reversals in financial markets, extending from April 5 through May 13. No two consecutive signatures are more than 5 calendar days apart. This usually means there will be a rolling series of markets reversing at different times throughout this period. This week it might be currencies and treasuries, next week (or one of the following weeks) it might be stocks or metals. But the main thing to watch, in our opinion, is the idea that metals and/or currencies tend to form a low or high within two weeks of Mars turning retrograde (April 17) and/or direct (June 29) that will not be seen for the rest of this year. We may also witness some world leaders who will be leaving the world stage for the rest of their life.

Last week, the Sun translated the Uranus/Pluto square. Venus will do the same April 19-22. If you thought last week was a little crazy in the news, in the world of financial markets, there is another similar episode right around the corner. Of course, finding the “corner” will not be so easy, because Saturn is also in square to Neptune. Saturn may be a straight line (linear thought), but Neptune bends reality. What you see and hear is not necessarily real. If you are having sensations that something is strange and surreal (like the face you see in the mirror), relax. That’s Neptune bending the laws of Saturn (which may actually be the laws of the land). And this is happening while the Sun and Venus are translating Uranus (suddenness) and Pluto (coercive and unilateral), all during the incredible mutable T-square in force this spring

Have fun. Enjoy the show. It can be very entertaining if you don’t take it (and yourself) too seriously. Yet, by all means, play it safe. Stay out of danger.


 

Disclaimer and statement of purpose: The purpose of this column is not to predict the future movement of various financial markets. However, that is the purpose of the MMA (Merriman Market Analyst) subscription services. This column is not a subscription service. It is a free service, except in those cases where a fee may be assessed to cover the cost of translating this column from English into a non-English language. This weekly report is written with the intent to educate the reader on the relationship between astrological factors and collective human activities as they are happening. In this regard, this report will oftentimes report what happened in various stock and financial markets throughout the world in the past week, and discuss that movement in light of the geocosmic signatures that were in effect. It will then identify the geocosmic factors that will be in effect in the next week, or even month, or even years, and the author’s understanding of how these signatures will likely affect human activity in the times to come. The author (Merriman) will do this from a perspective of a cycles’ analyst looking at the military, political, economic, and even financial markets of the world. It is possible that some forecasts will be made based on these factors. However, the primary goal is to both educate and alert the reader as to the psychological climate we are in, from an astrological perspective. The hope is that it will help the reader understand the psychological dynamics that underlie (or coincide with) the news events and hence financial markets of the day. No guarantee as to the accuracy of this report is being made here. Any decisions in financial markets are solely the responsibility of the reader, and neither the author nor the publishers assume any responsibility at all for those individual decisions. Reader should understand that futures and options trading are considered high risk.

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