MMA WEEKLY - Financial Astrology commentary, Financial Market Analyst and Market Timer

The printed version of Forecast 2014 will be translated into several different languages again this year as follows :

- Chinese Dutch Deutsch Japanese Russian Spanish Italiano

Each of these will also offer the English version of Forecast 2014, as will our Chinese distributor : "Your work is essential to anyone who is serious in this field. I can't thank you enough for it".

Go to the sheet for Downloading the video for the Ultimate book on stock market timing.

The Market Week in Review :

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. 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.

To be continued... (next week)

Announcements :

Recently I announced that I will be starting a new direction in life over the next two years, involving a mentor-apprenticeship program on Financial Market Timing and Analysis, according to the unique methodology I have developed over the past 30+ years. I didn't expect any response yet, as we are still developing the format. But... there has been a huge response! We know we are behind the curve on getting out information on this rapidly developing project, but we are working out the details and more announcements will be made shortly. So far we have determined that the training will take place over eight weekends stretching from 2013-2014. The dates for 2013 have now been selected. They are : April 6-8, June 15-17, Aug 10-12, and Oct 12-14. The 2014 schedule will be determined in 2013 . These 8 sessions will be the only time that Raymond Merriman will give this entire training in person. A pplications for the "On Line Market Timing Academy" (OLMTA) are being accepted now. There will be an introductory training session, September 15-16 in Troy, Michigan (see below). For more information, or an application form, please contact Amber Lundsten, call 1-248-626-3034, or go to or scroll down the opening page (next page) of www.mmacycles.com. Raymond Merriman's "Market Timing Academy" (MMTA) will offer a pre-training course on "Beginning Principles of Financial Astrology for Financial Market Timing", September 15-16, in Troy, Michigan, at the Management Education Center of Michigan State University. This 10-12 hour course may be attended live, in person, or via webcast televised to your computer. An archive of this workshop will be available for 30 days afterwards to those who sign up. This workshop will basically train non-astrologers in the use of reading an ephemeris, the table of planetary positions for any given day. This is essential to anyone who wishes to understand how to find a geocosmic critical reversal date for financial markets. This course (or audit of it) is a pre-requisite for anyone entering the MMTA market training course, as developed and instructed by Raymond Merriman. The MMTA two-year training course will begin in April 2013, and will involve 8 weekends of study - 4 weekends each in 2013 and 2014. For more information and registration, please go to www.mmacycles.com (front page, near bottom). We will make announcements as this training program unfolds. The cost for the September 15-16 pre-training workshop is $395.00 ($300 for MMA subscribers). This cost will be deducted from the fee of the two-year training course to those who apply and are accepted into MMTA by October 15, 2012.

Speaking of our weekly subscription reports, we now offer a new one titled : MMA Weekly Treasuries, Soybeans, and Crude Oil Report. Its cost will be the same as the Weekly Stock Indices, Weekly Gold and Silver, and weekly Currency Reports. It will start this week.

The DVD of the Denver Workshop on Financial Market Timing is still available! This financial markets workshop offers a completely unique and original perspective, integrating :

1) Market Timing studies,

2) Price Objective calculations,

3) Technical Analysis,

4) Pattern Recognition studies, and

5) Trend Analysis.

The primary focus of this workshop is on Market Timing Studies, particularly Cycles Analysis and Geocosmic Studies, as leading indicators that identify when to anticipate a reversal in all financial markets. Gold and the U.S. stock market are studied in great detail, especially regarding their current status. There is a wealth of timely and valuable information in this DVD, especially pertaining to the forthcoming Uranus-Pluto square of June 24, 2012, lasting through March 2015, and the important Jupiter correlation to stock market cycles coming up August-November 2012 and March-May 2013. The cost for this 4-hour DVD is $180.00 plus postage. To order, or call Amber at 1-248-626-3034. If you are a trader or investor who appreciates the value of market timing - especially in the next few months - this is a presentation you will not want to miss.

If you are an active short-term trader, or even if you are an investor who likes to keep up with our current thoughts on financial markets, you may be interested in our Weekly or even Daily Market reports with short-term trading recommendations, (see a sample there, of the weekly). It is the only way I keep in touch with traders on a daily or even weekly basis, as I no longer offer personal consultations. These reports give in-depth analysis of the DJIA, S&P and NASDAQ futures, Euro currency (cash and futures), Swiss Franc, Dollar/Yen cash and Yen futures, Euro-Yen cash, T-Notes, Soybeans, Crude Oil, Gold and Silver. The daily reports cover all stock indices listed above, as well as futures in Euro, T-Notes, Soybeans, Gold and Silver. Both reports provide trading strategies and recommendations for position traders as well as for shorter-term aggressive traders. Subscription to the daily report also includes the weekly report.
If you want more information call our offices at 1-248-626-3034.
These reports are extremely valuable to those who trade ETF's (Exchange Traded Funds). In the words of one of our subscribers :"I am really pleased with your recommendations through the Daily and Weekly Trade Recommendations. I have used them to trade gold and silver stocks in my IRA. In the last eight years I increased my account from $60,000 to $712,000. Thanks for your excellent publications". - Bryden C., Small Business Owner, Illinois.

The monthly MMA Cycles report and its companion MMA Japanese Cycles and MMA European Cycles reports went out last week. If you are subscriber to any these monthly reports and did not receive it, let us know at once via our email.

- This report covers our long term analysis of the stock market (DJIA and S&P futures), Gold, Silver, T-Notes, Euro and Swiss Franc currencies, grains and crude oil. It also provides the list of geocosmic and solar-lunar reversal zones for the 1-2 months. This report comes out Monday night to subscribers.
- The MMA Japanese Markets Cycles report covers the Nikkei, JGB Bonds, and the Dollar-Yen.
- The new MMA Europe Cycles report covers the German DAX, Swiss SMI, and Netherlands AEX stock indices, each in english only and will be available on Wednesday.
For subscription information, please go to our web site, or call us at 1-248-626-3034. If you are not a subscriber, you can check this service out on a 2-month trial basis for only $50.00.

Upcoming Events :

August 2-6, 2012 : Midwest Astrology Conference, in Ann Arbor, MI, Holiday Inn. Pre-seminar workshop on Financial Astrology and Financial Market Timing with Raymond Merriman on Thursday, August 2. Featuring over 20 astrologers, including Michael Lutin, Chris McRae, Bob Thibodeau, Dennis Fairchild, Monica Dimino, Richard Smoot, Grace Morris and others. For more information, call 303-828-5445, 303-604-2777, or email macasrtrology@yahoo.com, or go to http://macastrology.tripod.com.

September 15-16 : Troy Michigan. OLMTA - the On-Line Market Timing Academy - will conduct it pre-curriculum introductory workshop on "Basic Principles of Geocosmic Studies for Financial Market Timing". This will be an introductory course on how to read an ephemeris and how to calculate a critical reversal date. It is open to anyone, but understanding this material is mandatory for anyone entering the MMA mentor-apprenticeship program that will officially start in March 2013. This introductory workshop will be available as a live webinar too. The cost is $300 to subscribers of any MMA subscription report, or $395 to others. For further information, please contact or ordersmmma@msn.com.

April 6-8, 2013 : MMTA Course 1 : "Cycles and Chart Patterns in Financial Markets" with Raymond Merriman. Location: MEC Technical Center of Michigan State University, Troy, Michigan. This will be the first of eight courses given by The Merriman Market Timing Academy (MMTA). It is available to those who attend onsite, or via a live webcast that will take place from 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM Saturday and Sunday, as well as Monday from 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM, followed by a two-hour exam for those wishing to receive a certificate upon the completion of the MMTA entire 8 course program. The raw footage will be available for review for attendees for the 30 days following this course.

June 15-17, 2013 : MMTA Course 2 : "Geocosmic Correlations to Long-Term Cycles in Financial Markets" with Raymond Merriman. Location: MEC Technical Center of Michigan State University, Troy, Michigan.

August 10-12, 2013 : MMTA Course 3 : "Geocosmic Correlations to Primary and Trading Cycles in Financial Markets" with Raymond Merriman. Location : MEC Technical Center of Michigan State University, Troy, Michigan.

October 12-14, 2013 : MMTA Course 4 : "Solar-Lunar Correlations to Short-Term Reversals in Financial Markets" with Raymond Merriman. Location: MEC Technical Center of Michigan State University, Troy, Michigan.

The MMA Catalogue of products and services for 2013 is now out!!! You can download it in PDF. The ordering page is the last page of the catalogue. This is especially useful for those outside of the USA, since we do not mail these out by mail unless requested.

We are pleased to announce that the Spanish publication of "Basic Principles of Geocosmic Studies for Financial Market Timing" has just been completed. For more information and ordering, please contact www.lecochonsideral.info/semana.html.

I am oftentimes asked for recommendations of a money manager who uses my methods, since I won't manage other people's money. The thing is, almost all money managers I know use their own systems. But many subscribe to my services and share my thoughts about the future of the economy, various financial markets, and how to position one's portfolio along these lines. One money manager who subscribes to our services that I would suggest for those looking to structure a longer-term portfolio, such as a retirement account, is Duke O'Neill of Boulder, Colorado. He can be reached at dukeoneil1@gmail.com, or 1-(303) 545-5837. For those looking for a professional trader of commodity and futures contract might consider Ted Lee Fisher at ted.fisher@comcast.net. Ted is a legend in financial futures and has a seat on the CME. Both are very knowledgeable of the tools I use, of the way I am looking at markets, and yet each makes their own decisions as to exactly when to enter and exit any market. They will be more than happy to assist you.

To the above list, I would also like to recommend long-term MMA subscriber Erwin Brunner of Zurich, Switzerland. Mr. Brunner is the founder of BrunnerInvest AG. One of his five funds was awarded the"Best in-house fund of funds" in the world recently. Mr. Brunner is a former director of the Swiss Banking Corporation (today it is known as UBS), and a general director of Rothschild Bank in Zurich. As an independent wealth manager for high net worth individuals and institutional clients only, he places his clients into the funds of the best performing fund managers in the world, via his own research and experience. For high net worth readers interested in Mr. Brunner's funds, please contact him through www.brunnerinvest.ch.

The newly revised The Sun, The Moon, and Silver Book : Secrets of a Silver Trader, is now out. This is a book that you will use as a reference guide for...many, many years. It identifies all the key Sun-Moon combinations that have a higher (and lower) than expected probability of correlating with 4% or greater reversals in COMEX Silver. It also identifies"Big Range Days" - those days in which the range of Silver is most likely to be 3.5% or more of the price of Silver, which is a great tool for day traders. This book fulfills the dream of all traders: high probability winning trade possibilities, with minimal market exposure. It is that"extra edge". And Silver is a great market to trade now. The cost is $125.00. For ordering on line.

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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