Silver and the Moon…..

Silver futures started trading on a financial exchange in July of 1933. In the first trade chart we can see that Sun is in the sign of Cancer. Moon is the “ruler” of that sign. In the classic McWhirter approach to market forecasting, aspects to a “ruling” celestial body are key to watch for. In the case of Silver, we can see that times when transiting Sun makes a hard aspect to the natal Moon position at 15 degrees Sagittarius, Silver has the propensity to deliver a trend change.  Such was the case in September 2013 when Silver turned lower from the $25 level as Sun made a 90 degree square to natal Moon. In late November/early December as Sun passed by 0 degrees to natal Moon, Silver found support at the $19 level and started to turn higher…. We are now on the precipice of another Sun 90 degree aspect to natal Moon and Silver has had a decent little rally. Will it falter from here? Will it simply level off and trend sideways until the next Sun-Moon aspect? Watch carefully. To learn more about the McWhirter method watch for my soon to be released McWhirter Method Study Guide……

Planetary Declinations and the Australian All Ordinaries Index

Planetary declinations somehow, someway affect human emotion. As emotion changes, so too does buying and selling intensity on financial markets. Scientists still do not understand exactly how emotion is triggered by cosmic events. My research and back-testing has further revealed that declination does not affect all stocks, indices and commodity futures in the same way. This video shows the Australian All Ordinaries Index and how declination events align quite well to pivot swing points.

Potash Corp (TSX:POT, Nasdaq:POT) Better Times Ahead?

Has the bloodletting ended for Potash Corp ? Let’s take a look at some astrology to help answer this question.

Potash Corp has a first trade date of November 2, 1989. In the first trade chart, Sun is in Scorpio and is within orb of being conjunct to Mercury and Pluto. Sun is also 120 degrees trine to Jupiter. The ruler of the Sun’s sign -Scorpio is Mars and some would also say Pluto.

Looking at my daily price chart I see that the share price reached an interim swing high in mid-to-late May at the $45 level. At that time. repressive Saturn was hovering around the natal Sun position and the North Node was coming into orb of being conjunct natal Sun too. A pair of nasty house guests to be sure. The trigger point seems to have been Mercury making a 0 degree aspect to “key” planet Jupiter. As a result, price started to trend down and on July 30 price took a major body slam with news that a potash pricing cartel had fallen into disarray in Belarus. POT share price fell swiftly to the $30 level. Why the harsh emotional reaction? As price was swooning, aggressive Mars was passing key planet Jupiter and Sun was at a 90 degree hard aspect to both natal Sun and transiting Saturn. Since this price slam, POT has been treading water in a sideways channel pattern on the daily chart.

Fast forward to here and now and we see that Saturn is separating away from the natal Sun position, transiting Sun has passed the natal Sun position, Mercury is about to begin separating away from the natal Sun position and even North Node is starting to ease away from the natal Sun location. All good news to be sure. I am watching the sideways channel and a move over $34.50 (Canadian prices) will signal a move up and out of the channel formation. The next 0 degree aspect to the natal Sun position will come from Mars – but that is many months from now, so it looks like the coast is clear so to speak. The only questions are – how do large institutional investors view POT in particular and the crop nutrient sector in general? This will determine where POT prices go from here.

Planetary Declination – A Powerful Tool for Traders and Investors

Earth and the various other planets orbit the Sun in a plane of motion called the “ecliptic”. But these celestial bodies do not move uniformly in the plane – they wander above and below. Scientists and astronomers understand this deviation ( called declination) and are able to model it and predict it. Most astrology software programs will have a built-in function to allow you to create plots of declination paths for the various planets. When declinations of the faster moving planets make highs and lows, oftentimes these inflection points align to price swing pivots on some (but not all) commodity futures/currencies and Indices. This video illustrates this phenomenon using Platinum futures as an example.

Blackberry – Mars Inflicts Damage

In my Oct 5 E-Alert, I profiled Blackberry (TSX:BB). I showed how transiting Sun making 0 degree aspects to key planets (noted in the 1997 first trade chart) aligned to price inflection points on the weekly chart going back to 2009. It is also advised to examine transits of planets to the natal positions of: Sun, the Sun-sign ruler, Moon and Jupiter. This is the very strictest interpretation of the McWhirter method from 1938. Doing this reveals that Mars (the aggressive planet) is making hard aspects to natal Sun and natal Venus right now. This comes as Blackberry has just dismissed some senior management and as suitor Fairfax Financial announces it will not be taking the company over.

Gold – The Mars Observation

In my recent post, I explained how Uranus and Pluto were acting in concert to keep a psychological lid on Gold prices. I will add to these observations the transit of Mars. By late December, Mars will be at 7 Libra which places it 90 degrees square to the natal Sun position in Gold’s first trade chart. By March 2014 it will have moved well  past this natal Sun position. But!!! – then it turns Retrograde and starts to retrace its steps in the zodiac. By mid-May 2014 it will be done backing up ( at 9 Libra) and will go Direct again. By mid-June, 2014 it will have moved on out of orb with the natal Sun position.

So, in practical terms if you are sitting on some Gold mining shares, if you are an Advisor seeking to offer advice to a client or if you are poised to jump into the Gold market be aware that aggressive planet Mars will be making these aspects. The Gold price may well experience some significant volatility between now and year end. There may be another round of difficulty in the May through June period. I remain confident, though, that a year from now (late 2014) we will be looking at Gold in a more positive light once the Pluto-Uranus square issue starts to dissolve.

 

Crude Oil & Astrology

Oil futures over the next couple weeks. We are staring some key Fibonacci retracement levels in the face. Crude Oil futures may be close to exhibiting a short term trend change…..but be aware that Uranus remains parked at 9 Aries – a key point also in the first trade chart of Crude…

The You Tube video that I have just uploaded tells the rest of the story…..

Gold, Sun and Saturn

Hard aspects between Sun and Saturn can be seen to align to inflection points on Gold futures prices. A recent video clip posted to my You Tube channel tells the rest…..

The 2013 Nobel Prize – A Tipping Point for Finance?

Although the mainstream media has not drawn the correlation yet (and likely never will), Finance may be at a critical tipping point.

This past week, the Nobel Prize Committee awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics to three people – Eugene Fama, Lars Peter Hansen and Robert Shiller.

Of course, Fama is well known to anyone who has ever studied for the CFA program. He is the creator of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) which posits that the markets are a random walk of sorts. The EMH also posits that market prices are a reflection of all available information. I regard the EMH as a total joke and if you stop to consider the tech bubble and most recently the sub-prime mortgage related bubble you may be inclined to agree with me.

By awarding the Nobel Prize to a group of three people, I think we are seeing a shift or a tipping point. Fama is being given a pat on the back for his years of hard work and is being shown out the front door. But a new school of thought is being quietly ushered in through the back door and that is where co-recipient Robert Shiller fits into the mix. You may know Shiller for the Case-Shiller House Price Index. But, there is more to him. You see, he is best known for his years of work on Behavioral Finance which dictates that human emotion and exuberance play a role in market volatility, bubbles and crises. The third co-recipient is Lars Peter Hansen who is being lauded for his years of work on econometric modelling.

I am right glad to see the field of Finance arrive at this tipping point. You see, the stuff that I blog about and the material in my 3 books is basically a subset of Behavioral Finance. Planetary aspects and lunar events influence our emotions which in turn influence price action across markets. The effects of this cosmic influence can be measured with square root math and with esoteric techniques such as the Golden Sequence. W.D. Gann understood all of this way back in the 1920s. But, sadly sometime in the early 1950s after the markets had enjoyed a post WW2 run-up, the academics took charge with ridiculous notions that included the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) and Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT).

 Thank You Nobel Prize Committee for a big step in the right direction. 

I sincerely hope that going forward great strides can be made by psychologists, biologists and the like to enhance our understanding of how events in our solar system and human emotion connect to market price and investor behavior.

Sun Conjunct Neptune – how does the Crude Oil market respond?

Crude Oil futures started trading in New York on March 30, 1983. A look at a geocentric horoscope for that day shows Pisces and Aquarius in the 10th House. Neptune is the ruler of Pisces. This is likely why traditional astrology texts say that Neptune and Pisces are the rulers of Crude Oil.

But, the critical thinker in me says…”hold on just a moment…”.

Neptune is a slow moving outer planet. Geocentric Neptune entered the sign of Pisces in December 2012 and will not leave Pisces until May 2025. Does this mean that Crude Oil prices will now be the focus of everyone’s attention until 2025? I seriously do not think so. Crude Oil has been the focus of everyone from politicians to consumers at the pump for years and years. Tell me that last time you watched a financial broadcast where the price of Crude Oil was not commented on. So, why then would Neptune in Pisces in 2013 all of a sudden make a difference?

The notion of planetary rulerships goes back probably over 100 years. Who crafted this notion initially, I do not know. Astrologer Henry Wiengarten summed it up best in his 1996 book “Investing by the Stars” when he said that ‘rulerships can be assigned to various stocks which can then be made the subject of testing’.  In other words, he is saying to be careful. Do some testing before jumping to a conclusion concerning planetary rulers.

I concur.

One can argue all day long that Neptune and Pisces rule Crude Oil. But, does the back-testing support the thesis? The unquestioning assignment of planetary rulerships to stocks and commodities does not sit well with me. This is why I go to great pains to stress that I am not an astrologer. I am merely a critical thinker, a market trader, a person of reason – who uses astrology as a tool to assist me with trading. My goal is to share my knowledge and findings with others through my published books and posted blogs.

So, let’s now take a look at Pisces. Let’s look at those times when planets like Mercury, Venus and Mars transit through Pisces. Let’s also look at the Sun moving through Pisces too. Do these timespans correlate to significant price moves on Crude Oil?

To ensure a good statistical treatment, I looked at the timeframe September 1, 1998 to September 1, 2013.

This blog post will only take into account the event of Sun being conjunct (0 degrees) to Neptune. I have used an orb of 10 degrees. My start times for transits begin with Sun 10 degrees from Neptune and end with Sun being 10 degrees past Neptune.  Such transits take ~20 days.  

  

The following table shows my data findings:

Calendar Year Price Range	Sun conjunct Neptune	Price Change During Transit	% Change in Price
1999 – $15.79	Jan 12-Feb 2, 1999	-$0.04	0.32%
2000 – $7.30	Jan 14-Feb 4, 2000	+$0.82	2.9%
2001 – $15.28	Jan 16-Feb 5, 2001	+$0.26	0.86%
2002 – $14.09	Jan 19-Feb 7, 2002	+$1.64	9.1%
2003-$14.75	Jan 21-Feb 11, 2003	+$2.25	6.78%
2004 – $23.00	Jan 23-Feb 13, 2004	-$0.38	1.09%
2005 – $28.95	Jan 24-Feb 14, 2005	-$1.37	2.81%
2006 – $22.28	Jan 27-Feb 16, 2006	-$9.30	13.72%
2007 -$47.16	Jan 30-Feb 19, 2007	+$2.42	4.25%
2008 – $111.13	Feb 1-Feb 22, 2008	+$9.85	11.07%
2009 – $48.80	Feb 2-Feb 23, 2009	-$1.64	4.09%
2010 – $23.62	Feb 4-Feb 25, 2010	+$5.03	6.88%
2011 –$38.27	Feb 7-Feb 27, 2011	+$10.40	11.9%
2012 – $32.52	Feb 10-Feb 29, 2012	+$8.40	8.5%
2013 – $27.01 (so far)	Feb 11-Mar 4, 2013	-$6.91	7.12%

 

Let’s look at the individual moves and express the moves as a percentage. I am going to arbitrarily deem a ‘significant’ move to be 10%. Don’t forget that before you can put on a trade, you need a technical buy or sell signal on your charts to cause you to enter that trade. Such signals sometimes take time to develop. This is why I am deeming a 10% move to be significant. Such a move should allow time for a signal to develop. Such a move after paying trading commissions should leave you with a tidy profit.

From the 15 observations, we can see that 3 of 15 Sun conjunct Neptune events exhibited such a move.

Taking a significant move to be 5% shows that 8 of 15 events comply.

So, if you are a Crude Oil trader and if you know that Sun is about to conjunct Neptune, wait for a buy or sell signal, enter the appropriate trade and recent history shows that you will have between 20% and  53% chance of making at least a small gain on the trade – depending on how you define a significant move.

For me and my trading account, these statistics do not cut it. Perhaps you and your trading account will also agree with me.

The next time a traditional astrologer mentions that Pisces and Neptune rule Crude Oil you will have this blog post to remind you that Sun conjunct Neptune will not necessarily offer you a sure-fire winning trade.