We are now coming to the end of the most intense gathering of geocosmic signatures for the year, which are in effect August 21-September 10. In the past week we have observed many of the world's stock indices continuing to make new highs for this year. We have observed both the U.S. and Japanese Treasury Bonds and Notes drop to new multi-month lows, along with the Euro and Swiss Franc currency. At the same time we have watched Silver and Gold, as well as U.S. Soybeans, challenge their multi-month highs. Indeed, this critical reversal period has lived up to its billing in terms of market performance. It also seems to be living up to its promise in terms of critical shifts in the world political scene.

In Europe, the German Dax, Netherlands AEX, and Swiss stock markets all raced to new highs for the year on Friday. The London FTSE index came close on Wednesday, reaching 4279.10, just a few points off the yearly high of 4286.90 attained on August 18. All closed close to those highs on Friday, except the DAX, which closed at 3607.70, down considerably from the intraday and new yearly high of 3676.90. But what is most troubling from a technical standpoint is that all of these indices continue to exhibit bearish signs on these new highs. Either the momentum indicators are not as strong as they were at lesser highs, or they continue to register extreme overbought readings for an unusually long amount of time. No market can stay up for long with these kinds of readings, even if Mercury and Mars are both retrograde. As stated before, Mercury and Mars retrograde both indicate unreliability of technical signals, which seems to be the case for the past couple of weeks, thus satisfying this indirect forecast.

In the Far East, most stock indices also made new highs for the year. The Australian All Ordinaries achieved 3242.80 on Thursday, a new high for the year. The Japanese Nikkei soared to 10,814 on Wednesday, up over 3000 points now from its 22+-year low of 7604 back on April 29. I believe this means Japan’s stock markets are in a new 9-, 18-, and 54-year cycle, and hence new bull markets that could last several years. The Hang Seng Index of Hang Kong also made a new high for the year on Friday, hitting 11,199.

The same euphoria spilled over into the American markets. The Down Jones reached a new high for the year at 9609 on Thursday before settling back to close at 9503 for the week. The NASDAQ Composite registered a new high for the year on Friday at 1879.70. Yet all of these markets, and those in the Far East and Europe too, are exhibiting troubling signs from the technical side. The technical picture is looking weaker and weaker, while these new highs are forming, as this is known as “bearish oscillator divergence.” Usually this portends an imminent reversal.

But again, we have to ask, will the retrograde planets indicate uselessness of the technical studies? Or instead of reversal, does the presence of such major Uranus signatures indicate a “breakout” instead of a reversal? So far, it looks like the later, as all of these markets continue to break out above previously defined resistance areas. This is not unusual when Uranus signatures are present, and indeed, the biggest aspect of the year has been the Jupiter-Uranus opposition of August 29. Yet we are still within the orb of a possible reversal based on this signature. Historically it has an 83% correspondence to a primary or greater cycle top or bottom, within 12 trading days. Thus it could indicate both a breakout, which has obviously been happening, and a reversal, assuming the top is completed no later than September 17.

As indicated in the first paragraph, the stock market is not the only financial vehicle showing the possibility of a long-term cycle topping out (or bottoming) in this period. The U.S. Treasury Bond and Treasury Notes have also fallen drastically into this time band. In fact, they made a potential cycle low last week, and closed up strong from those lows on Friday. The same is true with the Japanese JGB market, and both the Euro and Swiss Franc. Last week I mentioned again the importance of contacting your broker and seeing about moving funds into money markets denominated in these currencies, as well as Australian Dollars. If you were able to do this, your account is already up significantly, just since the low on Wednesday. The Euro for instance traded down to its possible 13.5- and 26-month cycle trough on Wednesday at 1.0760 to the U.S. Dollar. By Friday’s close, it was already up to 1.1100. That is a big move in two days.

So what is going on? Well, right now we have to consider two major geocosmic signatures coming into force. The first is Venus and the Sun in square aspect to Pluto, September 5 and September 10. This is yet another “translation” to the degrees relating to threat of terrorism. And in fact, the U.S. terrorist alert warning has been raised again as of Thursday. It is almost as if the White House has an astrologer advising of these danger periods. As far as my understanding of astrology goes, this increased risk warning is again real, and may be a reason why foreign currencies as well as Gold and Silver prices rose so sharply Thursday and Friday.

But it also underlies a more troubling aspect to the politics of the world, and in particular the United States. Nobody likes living in a constant state of threat, and maybe this is more so with Americans, who are not use to this type of tension, than with most other people. It is hard to believe that Americans will re-elect Mr. Bush if he cannot give them a break from this constant worry about national security. He must find a way to bring the world body back into a harmonious working relationship for the purpose of world peace if he hopes to win next November, in my opinion. And as correctly forecasted many time before in this column, the attacks against his policies and efforts are starting to escalate, both for his overestimation of reconstruction efforts in Iraq, as well as his handling of the economy. He and Rumsfeld and Powell can give all the pep talks they want on how well everything is going in Iraq and at home in the U.S.A. But their comments are in direct contradiction to other stories that appear on the same front page of newspapers all over the world. Something is wrong when reports and quotes are in such stark contrast to one another. But, to one who studies astrology, it makes all the sense in the world, for this is the nature of Mars (aggressive defense) in Pisces (rumors and illusions). As stated before, you cannot believe what you will hear or read during this period. And that is only compounded now with Mercury also retrograde through September 20. As an example of the vast difference of opinions throughout the world today, Thursday’s Wall Street Journal reported a multi-national survey showing “84% of Americans say they believe war can be necessary to achieve justice, compared with 48% of Europeans.” And yet the same report shows a “surprising support in the U.S. for partnership with a stronger European Union has grown since June 2002.” The article concludes that “Europeans aren’t interested in competing with U.S. power, and Americans don’t want to run the world alone.” Talk about Mars retrograde in Pisces!

The other major signature in effect this week is the Mars-Jupiter opposition. This is a signature that has an unusually high correlation to primary or greater cycles in U.S. stocks, but within an orb of one month. Most of the time the range is 8 trading days or less. That aspect unfolds September 7 (Sunday).

Have a good week. And for those who are interested, there is still time to sign up for the ISAR 2003 triennial seminar, and the pre-seminar in Financial Astrology, and qualify for the pre-registration discount that ends September 15. The conference takes place October 8-13 in Anaheim, California, and the pre-seminar in financial astrology takes place on October 8. Speakers from 27 different countries will be giving classes. For further information, please see www.isarastrology.com. Or call 1-800-982-1788.

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.