Weekly column: Wasn’t all the evidence there for a banking collapse?

Review and preview

March recorded the worst U.S. bank failures since the 2008 crisis, but that did not stop some investors from snapping up battered financial stocks to bolster their bets on the sector’s long-term health, fund-flow data showed… That’s despite both funds plunging about 29% in March as the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank triggered fears of a contagion and doubts about the sector’s stability. – Lisa Pauline Mattackal, “What Crisis? U.S. Bank-focused ETFs See Strongest Demand in Months in March,” www.reuters.com, March 31, 2023.

“Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence” – Old archaeological adage quoted by Kristin Romey, “What Archaeology Is Telling Us About the Real Jesus,” National Geographic, March 29, 2023.

What banking crisis? Wasn’t all the evidence there for a banking collapse? Answer: only in the land of Neptune and Pisces, where realities don’t depend on evidence as much as intuition and imagination. However, in time, their intuition may prove correct, even if their timing is premature.

All the fear of two weeks ago that the global financial and banking systems were on the verge of a massive collapse suddenly evaporated. It was so Neptunian. The Sun, Mercury, and Neptune were conjunct in Pisces and in a square aspect to Mars on March 15-16, with Venus square Pluto as well, right at the height of the hysteria (Neptune and Pisces). Now, two weeks later, several global stock indices are on a two-week torrid rally, and much of the recent decline has been recovered. This is what markets look like when an MMA three-star geocosmic critical reversal combination occurs at the end (and beginning) of a primary cycle.

The pattern was nearly the same throughout the world. That is, most indices formed a primary cycle low between March 15-20. And from those lows, most rallied strongly into the close of Friday, March 31. In Asia and the Pacific Rim, this was the case in the ASX (Australia), Hang Seng, Nifty, and Nikkei indices. But each of these is still well below their highs of this year. In China, a new low did not form March 15-20, but Friday did see the SSE trade near its high of the prior week.

In Europe, all four indexes we track also rallied smartly from their lows of March 16-20 to multi-week highs on Friday. The German DAX was especially strong, reaching 15,659 and closing in on its high for this new year on March 7 at 15,706.

The Americas also saw sharp rallies. Of most interest was the NASDAQ futures, which posted its highest mark since mid-August of 2022. Technology stocks have been the leader, which isn’t surprising since Thursday was the conjunction between Venus and Uranus (tech) in Taurus (money and securities). But that aspect is passing now, and the market is becoming overbought.

In other markets, Crude Oil followed the same path as stocks. That is, a primary cycle low (and the lowest price since December 2021!) formed at 64.36 on March 20. But then commenced a 16% rally into a high of 75.72 on Friday, March 31. Silver was similar and from a primary cycle low of 19.94 on March 8, it soared to a high of 24.31 on Friday, a gain of nearly 22%. However, it is still below its yearly high of 24.77 on January 3, whereas Gold made a new yearly high the prior week, on March 20, at 2014.90. It’s a case of mixed divergences. Bitcoin was strong, soaring to 29,170 on March 30, its highest price since June 2022.

Short-term geocosmics

 According to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, more than 90% of audits are on families and small businesses below the $400,000 income threshold. – Steve Scalise, Adrian Smith, “Biden’s IRS Targets Small Businesses, Families: Army of 87,000 Agents Must Be Defunded,” www.foxbusiness.com, March 20, 2023.

This tax season, there have been heightened concerns about IRS audits as the agency begins to deploy its nearly $80 billion in funding. While the IRS plans to hire more workers, including enforcement agents, experts say there’s no need to worry — as long as you keep proper documentation. Still, certain red flags are more likely to trigger an IRS audit, experts say. “Round numbers are a dead giveaway,” said Preeti Shah, a certified financial planner. – Kate Dore, CFP, “4 Red Flags for an IRS Tax Audit,” www.cnbc.com, March 29, 2023.

This year’s tax season may be a mess according to geocosmic signatures and their association with human activity. The solar eclipse of April 19-20 will form a hard square with Pluto, planet of taxes and debt. This is just one day after tax filings are due on April 18 and also just one day before Mercury turns retrograde in the middle of Taurus, the sign of money. With Mercury retrograde and the large increase of new IRS agents, it is conceivable that there will be more audits than in the past. It is also conceivable that there will be more errors in reporting than usual. Taxpayers would be well-advised to check and double-check their forms before filing.

The tax season also corresponds to another tight gathering of several important geocosmic signatures, April 11-21. For one, the Sun will conjoin Jupiter in Aries on April 11, the same day that Venus will enter Gemini and trine Pluto in Aquarius. We may get a preview of the coming Renaissance I’ve talked about in this column when Uranus and Pluto trine one another 2025-2028.

For now, we need to pay attention to the fact that stock prices have rallied sharply into the Venus/Uranus conjunction in Taurus late last week. With this aspect, you never know if it’s a breakout or a reversal. Other than the NASDAQ and the German DAX, no markets are near multi-month highs, so a pullback is certainly a possibility – unless equity indexes gap up next week, which means they open above the high of this past week and stay above there all week. A weekly “gap up” is a sign of a bullish breakout. If markets are higher next week, then we look for them to continue their rallies into the Sun/Jupiter conjunction of April 11 and even the solar eclipse of April 19-20. We will discuss this further in our weekly subscription reports tomorrow, which have been very hot on the strategies for traders in stocks and cryptos.

Longer-term thoughts

 It’s crucial that we understand the dangers of this technology before it advances any further. People are quoting Arthur C. Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” – Peggy Noonan, “A Six-Month AI Pause? No. Longer Is Needed,” Wall Street Journal, April 1, 2023.

Thank you for this quote, Peggy Noonan. It perfectly describes the parallel paradigms of Pluto in Aquarius, which has just gotten underway as of March 23, as presented in last week’s online AstroData conference (www.astrodata.com). That is, Pluto in Aquarius signifies both a stunning renaissance driven by technology and innovation as well as the threat of war and a collective case of psychological dissociation, where the need for intimacy and close, supportive human contact is severely challenged by the advancements in technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI).

AI does present fascinating investment possibilities. But first, we need to resolve the threats of aggression by some world leaders who are obsessed with holding on to their own personal power and are willing to sacrifice the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, including their own populations. The last few instances where Pluto entered Aquarius, Neptune entered Aries, and Uranus entered Gemini, it corresponded within months to the three most important conflicts in U.S. history: the American Revolutionary War, the American Civil War, and World War II. These three ingresses are taking place again in 2023-2025. But similar cosmic configurations were also present throughout the 15^th century, which corresponds to the great Italian and European Renaissances.

There is hope. But there is also a clear and present danger that is likely to be visible between the solar eclipse of April 19-20 and the Mars-Jupiter-Pluto T-square of May 16-23. Let’s hope our world leaders choose the renaissance path over that of destruction.