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MMA Comments For the Week
Beginning July 28th, 2003

by Ray Merriman

Copyright 2003. All Rights Reserved

Last week witnessed several – but not all - of the world’s stock indices continuing to make new highs for their new primary cycle, which in most cases are less than 4 weeks old. But most of them have still not taken out their highs of the prior primary cycle registered in June or early July. This is still a market climate in which prices could go either sharply higher or lower as we come closer and closer to the strongest geocosmic signature of the year. That would be the opposition between Jupiter and Uranus, which occurs on August 29. Within 12 trading days, there is an 80+% correlation to primary or greater cycles in U.S. stock indices, as demonstrated in The Ultimate Book on Stock Market Timing Volume 3: geocosmic Correlations to Trading Cycles.

In the United States, the Dow Jones Industrial Averages soared on Friday to close at their highest level since the June 17 intraday high of 9352. The close this week was 9284.60. Yet the NASDAQ has made a new high for the year the previous week. But it did not make another new high this week, while the DJIA did exceed its previous week’s high, so once again we see a case of Intermarket Bearish Divergence between the two indices. However, until prices close below their lows of July 1, we cannot rule out the possibility that the market is bullish, and each index will yet make new highs within this new primary cycle.

Similar divergences were again noted in the stock indices of other parts of the world. In Europe, the German DAX index did not take out the high of the prior week, which was its highest price of this year. The London FTSE index, however, did make a new high for this new cycle last week, as it hit 4155.20 on Thursday. But this was not a new for the year. The Swiss Stock index fell just short of a new high for this cycle last week, as well as for the year. But the Netherlands AEX index made a new high for both this cycle and for this year. So again we see a lot of non-confirming signals for many related markets. The thing we have to keep in mind though, is that this is the early stage of a new primary cycle in most of these indices. And the early stage of any cycle is usually bullish. So all of these bearish divergences could fall by the wayside as the new primary cycle continues to push prices higher. And it may do this right into the Jupiter-Uranus opposition – if it is to correlate with a significant crest.

In the Pacific Rim, we note that the Japanese Nikkei fell to a major cycle trough last Tuesday as it recorded 9406. This is a modest drop from its 10,070 high for the year that was achieved on July 10. The Hang Seng of Hong Kong made its weekly high on Tuesday at 10,203, which was slightly below its high for the year attained on July 16 at 10,237. The All Ordinaries index of Australia closed the week at 3081.30, just off a new cycle high of 3084.40 recorded also on Friday. But this too was below the crest of its previous primary cycle achieved June 17.

The U.S. Dollar fell back this week, as the Euro, Swiss Franc, and Gold prices especially recovered smartly from their lows of the prior week. In fact Gold prices were up over $20.00 from their lows of the prior week, while Silver soared from 465 the previous Friday to 518 in the December contract in the middle of last week.

On the geopolitical front, the United States leadership claimed many victories last week with both the capture of key Iraqi “most wanted” men, and the killing of Saddam Hussein’s two sons, Uday and Qusay. According to the White House, this confirms that the regime of Saddam Hussein is truly over, a fear that was said to be responsible for the reticence of Iraqi citizens to help American efforts to rebuilt the country since the war ended. Now we will see if this makes a real difference, and also if this is the beginning of the effort to actually locate and capture Saddam Hussein himself. In America, the stock market welcomed this news, as each announcement of an important Iraqi capture or killing was followed by a powerful rally.

Astrologically, there is an important signature unfolding this week. It is known as Mars turning retrograde, an event that commences at 3:34 AM, Tuesday, Eastern Daylight Time. It will remain retrograde until September 27. During the entire time of its retrograde motion, Mars will be in the first 10 degrees of Pisces, which is significant. Mars is the principle of assertion, or even aggression. It rules military action. When it is retrograde, it usually does not bode well for those who would be in the role of the aggressor. Whoever starts a conflict tends to either lose, or experience great struggle, due to miscalculation. Think of Argentina invading the Falkland Islands in the early 1980’s, which took place under a retrograde Mars. Furthermore, the principle of Pisces is the opposite of aggression. If anything, it is withdrawn, passive, and strives for peace.

So for the next two months, we have this principle of “passive-aggressive,” “start, but don’t finish,” “approach-avoidance,” and “blame and deny,” present throughout the world. It is probably a favorable time for initiating new meetings – or even treaties - amongst governments or people who truly wish for world peace, and an end to military aggression. But it may also be a period in which such initiative could be very badly misunderstood, or even undermined, by those who claim to want peace, but do not really wish it at the core of their essence. One must be very discerning as to who and what to really trust during this period. It is a time when real healing can take place, or a time where there is initial promise for such, but then the trust factor is violated and great disillusionment or disappointment results instead. I would watch for this dynamic to be present in the peace process of the Middle East, between Israel and her neighbors, now.

As far as stock markets are concerned, the period surrounding the date of Mars retrograde (July 29) is generally not very important in regards to trend reversals. There is only a 30% correlation to primary cycles unfolding nearby to this phenomenon, which is one of the lowest correlations of all geocosmic signatures we study. The Mars direct period (September 27) has a much more powerful historical relationship to the ending of old cycles and beginning of new ones. However, the following week (August 4-12) does have geocosmic signatures correlating with potentially strong reversals in U.S. (and other world) stock indices. The most important will be the Sun-Neptune opposition of August 4. It is possible that Mars retrograde may seem important this time due to its closeness to the Sun-Neptune opposition just 6 days afterwards. But only the later is a Level 1 signature by our studies. Sun-Neptune in opposition, and Mars retrograde in Pisces…. it sounds like a period that may be rife for a lot of rumors, many of which may be intentionally initiated for questionable motives, and then denied. But once again, with “Big Daddy” Saturn resting firmly in Cancer for two years, everyone is looking for accountability and responsibility. This is a time when those who have questionable motives may make critical errors in judgment, and these errors (and motives) will have to be accounted for. Maybe Saddam Hussein is captured during this period. Maybe more discoveries related to corporate or government fraud comes out during this period too.

Disclaimer: 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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