More “shock and awe” unfolded last week in the wake of the Mars translation to Uranus and Pluto the prior week, July 17-18. First of all, there was the horrific shooting spree in Aurora, Colorado that killed 12 innocent movie goers and wounded 58 others, by a young ex-graduate student of neuroscience named James Holmes. Then the charge of murder to Gu Kailai, wife of fallen Chinese Leader Bo Xilai, for the fatal poisoning of British businessman Neil Heywood. This is the truly dark side of Uranus square Pluto, which is just getting underway and will remain through March 2015. The senseless loss of life through human violence is consistent with the dynamics of this powerful long-term planetary cycle.
But it also relates to issues of exploding world debt and threats to the fabric of the world financial system. In the study of Financial or Mundane Astrology, Uranus and Pluto pertain to explosions, and Pluto specifically relates to debt and calls for financial or banking reforms. It is no secret that much of Europe is in a financial and banking crisis. On Thursday, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi surprised the financial community by announcing that “… the ECB was willing to use its power to print money to preserve the euro,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Draghi went on to state, “Within our mandate, the ECB is willing to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro and believe me, it will, be enough.” Hmmmm, maybe I’m becoming too cynical. Whenever anyone tells me “Believe me,” or “Trust me,” my first inclination is to not “believe” or “trust” what then follows - especially when pronounced under Mercury retrograde, where statements are usually invalidated or in need of modification soon afterwards.
Stock markets around the world loved Drahgi’s message. It was not only a surprise (typical of Uranus), but offered hope that –what? – the European Central Bank would finally be willing to do what Japan and the USA have been doing, which is essentially buy massive amounts of euro zone bonds to stem the region’s financial crisis. Or, said another way, to help various nations and their banks increase their debt load (with low rates) in hopes that a recovery will be spurred that will enable counties to climb out of their financial debt. But borrowing money in the form of selling treasuries is still more debt. All of this “good news” came out on Thursday, July 26, the middle of the Mercury retrograde period (July 14-August 8). It is not uncommon for markets to make sudden, sharp, but brief reversals in the middle of the retrograde time band if they did not reverse at the beginning of the retrograde.
It wasn’t just stock markets that took off last week. Gold and Silver broke out above important resistance. And the Euro currency recovered from a two-year low on Tuesday, July 24 following Draghi’s “believe me” statement. But all of this happened right in the middle of the retrograde time band, when words are frequently at odds with the actions that follow.
Best Trades of the Past Week
Our best trades last week were in currencies. The weekly report for July 23, stated for the Euro: “Aggressive traders are flat. Look to buy at 119.90-1.2060 with a stop-loss on a close under 118.” On July 24, the Euro bottomed at 1.2040. By Friday it was testing 1.2400. The weekly report also covered all shorts for position traders in the Euro, Swiss Franc and the Euro-Yen for excellent profits early last week. Position traders then stand aside until Mercury ends its retrograde time on August 8. Until then, we just give new trades for aggressive traders. The daily report had position traders short for over a month (around the 1.2700 area) and covered all shorts on Monday, June 23, for excellent profits.
Short-Term Geocosmics
Mercury continues retrograde through August 8 as discussed at length in last week’s column. But for this coming week there are a slew of soft, harmonious aspects which are usually favorable in this type of market climate. However, there is also a full moon (Leo Sun, Aquarius Moon) August 2, and that can disrupt the evenness of this current rally.
Our sights are set more on the following two weeks, especially August 10-20 when Mars will conjunct Saturn (the astrological peak of the drought) in a point that is critical to the chart of the New York Stock Exchange (founded May 17, 1792). Mars will be at 22-27 degrees of Libra then. In the NYSE chart, Jupiter and Neptune are at 22-27 of Libra, and Saturn is in opposition at 26 degrees of Aries. This could be explosive, both in a mundane sense (for it pertains to military conflict and vehement disagreements) and financial markets. At its best, it is a time that can be favorable for organizing one’s life and getting a lot accomplished, if you are focused.
Longer-Term Thoughts
It looks like we will be getting that Jupiter-in-Gemini long-term cycle crest in stock markets that tends to happen when Uranus is also in a hard aspect to Pluto. Let’s review that pattern that has been in evidence over the past 140 years.
As discussed in detail in the Forecast 2011 and 2012 books, the USA stock market has – on average – topped out when Jupiter was in transit between 23 degrees of Aries and 7 degrees of Taurus, according to studies going back to 1870’s. This study included 11 Jupiter cycles, as Jupiter takes about one year to transit through each sign of the zodiac. Jupiter was in that sector of the zodiac from May 2-July 21, 2011. Nearly all of the stock indices we follow did indeed make a new two-year high during that period, then declined sharply from July 21 through October 4, 2011. On October 7, 2011, Jupiter retrograded back to 7 degrees of Taurus, and eventually to 0 degrees of Taurus. After turning direct, it finally came out of this sector on March 7, 2012. From October 4, 2011 through March 16, 2012, many of the world indices rallied sharply again and made secondary highs. They did not exceed their highs of May-July 2011, except in the United States, where new highs were posted March 27 and May 1, 2012 in the S&P and Dow Jones Industrial Average respectively.
Upon further research, it was discovered that there were two exceptional cases in the past 100 years when the stock market did not make a long-term cycle crest when Jupiter was in the 23 Aries-7 Taurus sector. Those two times were nearby to the previous two times that Uranus was to form a hard aspect to Uranus. The all-time high of September 1929 was just before the last square between Uranus and Pluto. After that high, the stock market fell hard for nearly three years and lost approximately 90% of its value as the Great Depression got underway. The next (and last) hard aspect between Uranus and Pluto was the conjunction of 1965-1966. The DJIA made another new all-time high when it touched 1000 for the very first time in February 1966. It immediately reversed and began a bear market that didn’t really end until 1974. In each of these two cases, the market continued to rise past the time Jupiter was in late Aries through early Taurus. In 1929, it topped out when Jupiter was in 14 degrees of Gemini. In 1966, it topped out when Jupiter was in 24 degrees of Gemini.
Now two cases do not make a valid statistical study. But it is interesting to note that once again the stock market seemed poised to race to new highs, and once again it is happening with Jupiter in Gemini, during the time that the highly disruptive and unpredictable Uranus is in hard aspect to Pluto (June 2012 through March 2015). As readers know, Jupiter has entered Gemini as of June 11. It will remain in Gemini through June 26, 2013. It will be in the 14-24 degrees of Gemini sector twice: August 27-November 12, 2012, and then April 12-June 4, 2013. One of those would be the ideal time for a crest if the pattern were to follow that of the prior two times. But with only two cases to draw from, it is impossible to say if 14-24 Gemini is the zodiac sector that pertains to the crest when Uranus is in hard aspect to Pluto. We could hypothesize that it will include this sector, but since this area involves ten degrees of the zodiac, it could be that it actually includes ten degrees before or after this range. That is, it could encompass a range of 4 degrees of Gemini through 4 degrees of Cancer, which would expand the time band of a possible crest to June 29, 2012 through July 18, 2013.
Financial Astrology is just one of the many market timing tools that can help narrow the time band down for a possible long-term crest or trough. The study of cycles is yet another. And per our comments of last week, it seems most likely that the crest will happen before the end of this year, or very early next year, when the January 1, 2013 tax hikes will hit investors very hard. Taxes on capital gains and dividends will explode in what is commonly referred to as the impending “Fiscal Cliff.” As discussed before, equity prices would have to fall at least 30% to adjust for the lost income on after-tax dividends that will result. In order to keep a healthy share of profits from those gains, investors will have to sell their dividend-yielding equities before January 1, 2013, unless these new tax hikes are repealed. With Pluto (taxes) in Capricorn (government), being squared by Uranus in Aries (about as a far away from civility and agreement between opponents as one can imagine), the prospects of an agreement to repeal these acts seem next to nil to a Financial or Mundane Astrologer. It also seems to an outside observer that the main point of interest to lawmakers is: how can we blame the other party for this next leg of the impending and seemingly never-ending financial crisis that we are about to enable?
It might surprise them to wake up one day in the next 1-2 years to find out that they – both bankers and the lawmakers themselves – are being held accountable by their citizens, just as was the case in Iceland recently. You don’t read about this in the popular press because… well, you can figure it out. Just ask your search engine for results of “Iceland politicians taken to court.” With Uranus in waxing square to Pluto, and Pluto in Capricorn, it would not be surprising for the populace of many other nations to demand that their bankers and lawmakers be taken to court over their negligence that either failed to stop or even exasperated the exploding financial debt signified by Uranus in waxing square to Pluto. The thing is, this Uranus and Pluto square will soon form a grand square to the Sun-Saturn square in the USA birth chart. The Sun in a nation’s chart is its president and Saturn is its government. This is a powerful astrological event coming up for the United States in 2013-2015, something never quite seen before.
It sounds scary, doesn’t it? It sounds like a revolution is brewing. Does it have to be? No, of course not. We still live in a world of choices that determine the outcome. But those choices – or failure to make choices when the possibility is present - also have consequences. Just like elections do. With Uranus (the masses) square to Pluto (power), we live in a time when the cosmos implies that power is radically changing from the leaders to the people. Governments everywhere are on the precipice of a historical transformation as a result of the financial crisis, of the exploding world wide debt.
It makes you wonder if printing more dollars and Euros to buy more debt is really the solution to lessening that debt, especially when you know darn well that politicians won’t be using those funds to bring their debt down, but rather to finance more unaffordable spending programs, and hence incurring more – not less - debt.
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