Market Preview for the week starting December 9, 2019

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Review & Preview

The jobs market turned in a stellar performance in November, with nonfarm payrolls surging by 266,000 and the unemployment rate falling to 3.5%, according to Labor Department numbers released Friday. Those totals easily beat the Wall Street consensus. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for solid job growth of 187,000 and saw the unemployment rate holding steady from October’s 3.6%. Average hourly earnings rose by 3.1% from a year ago. “Bottom line, America is working,” Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “These are very strong numbers.” – Jeff Cox, “Jobs Growth Soars in November,” www.cnbc.com, December 6, 2019.

US President Trump tweeted plans to tax US consumers of French champagne and cheese (and other goods). Substituting Kraft Cheese Slices for Camembert may be a heavy burden. However, earlier tweets re-imposing taxes on US users of Brazilian and Argentinian steel seem even more serious. Companies have spent years believing that they can operate global supply chains. Trust in global supply chains is threatened when a Trump trade deal does not seem to last more than a few months. If trust in global supply chains is weakened, investment in global supply chains will be weakened, and any economic recovery in 2020 will be weakened. Trust is hard to restore once it has been damaged. You cannot turn burnt toast back into bread. A lot of toast was burnt yesterday. – Paul Donovan, UBS Morning Comment, December 3, 2019.

Indeed, America is working. And it is not just for the upper classes in society as some claim. The middle class is also improving financially as unemployment fell to another multi-decade low. People are working and incomes are rising. As one commentator on a market-related TV news station stated today, it is amazing how well the economy can perform when you get government out of the way of trying to micromanage business. But is that true? And if so, what could change it? A slowdown in world trade is what could change this trend. And the continuation of an escalating tariff policy (by the government) could easily become the culprit that brings the world and national economy down as expansive Jupiter now begins its transit in the contractive sign of Capricorn, December 2, 2019-December 19, 2020.

Last week started off by exhibiting fears of a worldwide slowdown. World stock markets plummeted sharply the first two-three days of last week, following Jupiter’s entrance into Capricorn. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, for instance, was down nearly 800 points from its opening on Monday to its intraday low on Tuesday. Then it paused on Wednesday and Thursday as it awaited Friday’s employment report. On the blowout payroll numbers, the DJIA soared 327 points to within striking distance of its all-time high recorded on November 27, the prior week. The odds are that other world stock indices will open higher on Monday, especially in Asia and the Pacific Rim.

Gold and Silver fared exactly the opposite from stocks. That is, they rallied nicely into Wednesday, paused on Thursday, then came down hard on Friday. Treasuries followed a similar path to that of metals, but Crude Oil traded higher along with stocks. In fact, Crude Oil is now testing $60/barrel for the first time since mid-September. Bitcoin made an important low on November 25, but it is still struggling to get back above $8000.

Short-Term Geocosmics 

The rally in Crude Oil and equities may be related to Jupiter – not because it is leaving Sagittarius, but because it is approaching a favorable trine to Uranus on December 15. Jupiter is the co-ruler of Sagittarius, and Uranus is the planet that breaks out of congestion zones, sometimes spectacularly. Its correlation with market movements can last up to ten days either side of the aspect.

However, the Jupiter/Uranus trine may be tempered by the conjunction of Venus with Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn, December 11-13. Suddenly, debt and taxes may come to the forefront. Yet, with Jupiter trine Uranus following those conjunctions, there may also be signs of a trade deal between the U.S. and China, which would make sense as new tariffs are scheduled to be launched December 15. It would appear, in a perfectly ordered universe, that the talks start to break down again with Venus (agreement) conjoining Saturn (delays) over tariffs (Pluto). But it could also mean the final details of a limited agreement suddenly come to fruition. That could be the trigger providing the impetus for another record high by the end of the year, for the Sun will then conjunct Jupiter and trine Uranus, December 24-27. Failure to get an agreement signed by the end of the year puts a trade deal back into the dark, as the Sun, Mercury, Saturn and Pluto then conjoin with one another in the serious sign of Capricorn, January 10-13. It is also a full moon and Uranus changes directions. Equity markets – and all financial markets – could abruptly change directions then. It may not be pretty if a trade deal fizzles out again.

Longer-Term Thoughts 

“Americans have always been able to handle austerity and even adversity. Prosperity is what is doing us in.” – James Reston, American journalist, as quoted in December 6, 2019 edition of the Arizona Republic,

You are going to hear a lot about the Saturn/Pluto conjunction that will occur January 12, 2020. It is the one of the “top 6” synodic (planetary conjunction) cycles in terms of its length. That is, it happens every 32-37 years. The last time it occurred was November 8, 1982. This will be the longest planetary cycle since the Uranus/Neptune conjunction of 1993, which followed the 45-year Saturn/Uranus and 36-year Saturn/Neptune conjunctions of 1988-1989. Uranus/Neptune is super-long at 171 years, second only to Neptune and Pluto’s 492-year cycle.

The Saturn/Pluto conjunction is a very important planetary cycle correlating with political and mundane matters, as well as economic trends. Its dynamics and themes are covered in detail in the soon-to-be released Forecast 2020 Book. In fact, I don’t think anyone has dissected, analyzed, researched, and explained this cycle to the extent it is covered in this book. Why? Because it describes the current conditions and collective psychology engulfing the world today.

With a duration of 11 months, it is already in full force, and will remain so throughout most of 2020, as both planets continue close to one another by longitude in last degrees of Capricorn. They are already conjunct one another by declination and have been since July 2019.

There are basically three themes that are delineated in Forecast 2020 regarding this major planetary conjunction:

1. Checkmate – someone wins, and someone loses, and thus breaks the logjam. There are no win-win outcomes likely, unless opposition parties are committed to such a favorable resolution.
2. Virtue versus corruption – heroes versus villains.
3. Power to destroy versus superhuman effort to reform and reconstruct – tremendous pressure where the collective feels increased stress and anxiety to do – or avoid doing – something.

It is important to recognize that Saturn/Pluto in Capricorn is also a time of consequence for acts and policies initiated during the stages that led up to 2020. For instance, the Fed made unorthodox monetary policy decisions like ZIRP (Zero-interest rate policy) and QE (quantitative easing) in 2008-2016 for which no one knew what the consequences would be, but there were concerns that there would be a reckoning at some point. The same was believed regarding the Brexit vote of 2016, and the more recently enacted tariff policies of the U.S. (2018-2019) against several nations, and especially China. With Saturn and Pluto, the consequences of all these actions and decisions are due to climax in 2020. Someone will win, someone will lose. There will not likely be a win-win result here, as Pluto represents force and finality – the conclusion to the matter – and not by compromise.

The good news is this: the lack of civility between parties on opposing ends of these matters may also peak now, in 2020-2021. The pressure that the collective has increasingly experienced since the Cardinal Climax began in 2008 has been like being caught in a constantly tightening vise. That pressure will slowly begin to release after January 12, 2020, but probably not very noticeably until after the Saturn squares Uranus in 2021. By then we will know who the winners and losers are and what type of rebuilding must commence.

How will this dynamic affect the economy and financial markets? This is also a subject tackled in the Forecast 2020 Book and will be addressed in this month’s issue of the monthly MMA Cycles Report to be released Monday-Tuesday of this week and in the Dutch SMT Cyclus Nieuwsbrief. For now, just be aware that under this aspect, there isn’t much room for error. It is valuable to have a plan, stick with it, and realize there will be consequences for being lax with discipline, such as loss of money. At the same time, there can be great rewards for exhibiting great discipline during this time and staying with a well-thought out plan. By itself, the Saturn and Pluto conjunction doesn’t correlate with the end of long-term trends. However, in combination with hard aspects involving Saturn and Uranus within one year, it does correlate with reversals of long-term trends, and oftentimes violently so. This is the cosmic situation we are about to enter in 2020-2021. The economy and stock markets have done very well for a very long time (record length of expansion). But what goes up usually comes down, and with hard aspects of Saturn/Pluto followed by Saturn/Uranus, it may not be a soft landing.

Announcements

	The MMA Monthly Cycles Report and its sibling, Dutch SMT Cyclus Nieuwsbrief will be released this week, Tuesday December 10/Wednesday-Thursday (NL) to all active subscribers of that report. Every issue provides MMA’s intermediate-term outlook for the U.S. stock market, Gold and Silver, Treasuries, Euro Currency, Crude Oil and Soybeans. Each issue also contains MMA’s original geocosmic critical reversal dates (CRDs) and Solar/Lunar reversal dates over the next several weeks for DJIA, Gold, and Silver. If you are not a subscriber to the monthly MMA Cycles Report / SMT Cyclus Nieuwsbrief>> and wish a copy of this month’s outlook for financial markets, consider trying the December and January issue for only € 59. With stocks approaching their all-time highs again, and Gold recently making a new 6-year high, and Jupiter now leaving Sagittarius as the 2020 “Capricorn Stellium” begins, this is an important juncture for many financial markets. Go to MMA Cycles Report>> or the SMT Cyclus Nieuwsbrief >>;
	SPECIAL ANNUAL REPORTS ON JAPANESE, CHINESE AND GERMAN STOCK INDICES This year’s English edition of the Forecast 2020 Book is 250 pages, our largest ever. We think readers will be pleased with additional analysis on the three synodic cycles that will be in effect in 2020, something that has happened in over 130 years. The correlation of these cycles to mundane, political , and economic events is fascinating, especially the research on the longest of these planetary cycles beginning this year: the 32-37 year Saturn/Pluto conjunction. In addition to the English edition of Forecast 2020, Raymond Merriman has written three special 9-page yearly market reports/forecasts for the Japanese Nikkei, Chinese Shanghai Composite, and the German DAX stock indices. Each of these are translated and printed in their respective Japanese, Chinese, and German book editions of Forecast 2020. Many of our English readers and global investors may find these reports to be of special interest too. Therefore, we will make each of these reports available for purchase for $30 apiece. They are written in English and analyze each of these markets from the perspective of their long- and intermediate-term cycles, as well as citing their correlations to planetary cycles in effect in 2020, such as the history of the three major synodic cycles that will unfold next year.
	Asset Management by investing according to the Market Timing Method is available now Made possible in The Netherlands: Investments of the Cycles Analysis & Planetary Synschronicities' managed Portfolio (CAPS) are based on analysis of market history, by a team of MMTA-Graduates. Read more>>
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Disclaimer & State 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 Schogt Market Timing & 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.