Merriman's comments for the week of Feb. 9

Comments for the Week Beginning February 9, 2009
Written by Raymond Merriman

Review and Preview
The Venus “translation” of the forthcoming Saturn-Uranus-Pluto T-square (“Cardinal Climax") ended last week without an economic panic or stock market crash. Perhaps it was related to the fact that Venus was in its exalted sign of Pisces, and thus not prone to such a painful synchronicity as other translations have experienced in the past year.

Nevertheless it was an important week for many of the stock indices of the world. In the United States, for example, the Dow Jones Industrial Average did drop to its lowest level of this new year on Thursday, February 5, as the Venus translation ended, and the second passage of the Saturn-Uranus opposition took effect. On that same day, the Swiss Stock Index (SSI) fell to its lowest level since September 2003, dropping to 5005. But those were the only two indices we track that took out their lows of January 23, our last three-star geocosmic critical reversal zone. Instead of making new lows, most of these indices ended the week with rallies to their highest level in several days, and even weeks, thus creating a clear case of bullish intermarket divergence off the DJIA and SMI lows of February 5.

In other markets, the euro currency fell to a multi-week low early in the week, then re-tested it later in the week. Now we have to see if that re-test is valid and leads to the expected rally. After falling sharply to a new multi-week low on Tuesday, February 3, grain markets came alive with a sharp rally into the end of the week, especially in the Soybean market. Silver was also very strong last week, closing above 1300 for the first time since September 2008. Gold on the hand could not take out its high of the previous week, setting up a potential case of intermarket bearish divergence. Crude Oil was relatively quiet and slightly down last week. It’s time for action will be coming up shortly, so don’t get complacent here.

Short-Term Geocosmics
This week will find a full moon in effect on Monday, followed by the Sun-Neptune conjunct on February 12 and a Mars-Jupiter conjunction on February 17. As stated many times before in this column, Jupiter and Neptune co-rule Pisces, the sign that has rulership over crude oil.

The Mars-Jupiter occurs in Aquarius, which might also act as a boost for stock prices. In fact, it is possible that instead of a panic and market collapse signified by the Saturn-Uranus opposition, we may instead see a serious rise in stock prices related to the Jupiter-Uranus-Neptune mutual reception, which will now be stimulated by the addition of Mars in Aquarius. This can pave the way to some serious innovative thought regarding many issues of importance to societies around the world, such as trade agreements, cooperative scientific and space exploration efforts, and new organizations or meetings designed to promote greater peace initiatives. The more that world leaders come together and communicate, the more the world investment community gains confidence in the future of world trade and business. This is a favorable time band for progress to be made in these areas.

Longer-Term Thoughts
Our future thoughts are also focused on the first two weeks of March, when the 19-month cycle of Venus retrograde will take place (March 6). This is one of the strongest of all geocosmic correlations to primary or greater cycle culminations in the USA stock market, as demonstrated in “The Ultimate Book on Stock Market Timing, Volume 3: Geocosmic Correlations to Trading Cycles.” Within an orb of 12 trading days, this signature has a nearly 80% rate of frequency to a primary or great cycle, which is huge.

It is not only stock indices which tend to undergo powerful reversals of trends at this time. Precious metals, grains, and interest-rate related markets do so too. The cause is usually due to a significant change of approach regarding interest-rates and/or monetary policies. This of course pertains to Central Bank policies. Whatever was their policy before this geocosmic signature, it now takes a decided shift in direction.

Another reason why this particular Venus retrograde may be so important is because of what is also happening astrologically to the founding chart of the Federal Reserve Board (December 23, 1913, Washington DC). As discussed previously in this column, transiting Pluto is crossing the Sun of this chart throughout much of 2009. Not only that, but it is also opposing the natal FRB Pluto, which is posited at 0 degrees of Cancer. When Venus goes stationary direct in mid-April, it will do so around 0 Aries, thus forming a T-square to the FRB Sun-Pluto opposition.

What could this mean? Pluto rules debt. Transiting Pluto opposite an entity’s natal Pluto may represent a period when the entity itself runs out of money, or options to create money without incurring new threats or oppositions from people outside of its organization. Now if we look at the USA chart (July 2, 1776 is the one I use, as that is when the vote was concluded for the Declaration of Independence), we will note that its Venus is 0 degrees of Cancer, same as the FRB Pluto. We will also note that President Obama’s natal Venus is also located at 0-1 of Cancer. This may point to a major point of dissention between the White House and the Federal Reserve Board over the actions pertaining to the currency or money supply (Venus) of the country.

If we look next to the chart of the FRB Chair Ben Bernanke (Dec 13, 1953, Augusta, GA), we will see that he has a natal Sun at 21 Sagittarius, in direct opposition to its ruler Jupiter at 21 Gemini. And where is the Saturn-Uranus opposition taking place this year? It is in a grand square to Bernanke’s Sun-Jupiter. Such an aspect can indicate a sudden awareness that things are not going at all the way one planned. In fact, it may not be going the way anyone planned, which seems to be the case when Saturn is in opposition to Uranus anyway.

Will we ever come to an understanding, and a consensus, on what to do about the economic crisis? Probably. But it is not likely before April is over. Until then, we may witness even more starts and stops before we settle on a course of action that has broad-based support. In the meantime, let’s hope the discussions can at least be civil and nonpartisan, for the world is in need of belief in the ability of its leaders to resolve these problems. In the meantime, the next 4 weeks look promising for those leaders whose good will and efforts towards mutual cooperation can lead to positive results.

Announcements
For those interested in learning or improving your understanding of astrology, please note that a fantastic conference in Astrology is going to take place August 19-24, 2009, at the luxurious Oakbrook Hills Marriot Resort, just outside of Chicago (not far from O’Hare Airport). This will be the ISAR (International Society for Astrological Research) 2009 conference, featuring over 80 professional astrologers from all over the world, including Jeff Jawer, Rick Levine, Michael Lutin, Claude Weiss, Nick Campion, Verena Bachmann, and several Financial Astrologers, including myself. There will be a whole track on Financial Astrology, and I will be giving a one-day workshop on Financial Astrology the day after the main conference. For more information, and registration, please go to www.isar2009.com. For those who golf, note that this resort has one of the most impressive golf courses on the PGA tour. Golf where the pros golf, and learn astrology from some of the best astrologers in the world, all at the same time!

...[see full set of announcements at MMA's website, listed in "other sites of interest" at the right side of the page]

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 cycle’s 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 these 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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