Weekly column: Financial markets and government dysfunction at a crossroads

Review

Stocks rallied Friday even after the release of stronger-than-expected U.S. jobs data and a pop in Treasury yields. The U.S. economy added 336,000 jobs in September, the Labor Department said. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected 170,000 jobs. Stocks posted a stunning turnaround on Friday, after initially falling on the stronger-than-expected jobs report. At its session low, the Dow had fallen as much as 272 points; it surged by more than 400 points at the height of the rally. – Sarah Min and Hakyung Kim, “Dow Soars Nearly 300 Points Friday After Hot Jobs Report,” October 6, 2023.

 Government! Three-fourths parasitic and the other fourth stupid fumbling. – Robert Heinlein, “Stranger in a Strange Land,” G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1961.

Members of the US Congress are now incapable of doing anything. Financial markets are not surprised that members of the US Congress are incapable of doing anything. Investors only care whether House Republicans can get the extreme wing under control long enough to elect a speaker before the next government shutdown in mid-November. Dr. Paul Donovan, “US Politicians are Incapable of Doing Anything,” UBS Morning Comment, October 4, 2023.

Last week was every bit as bizarre and insane as the Venus/Uranus square that ended the prior week would suggest. Aspects like this involving the planet Uranus have two faces when it comes to financial markets. They either break out below multi-month support or above multi-month resistance or they end the trend and reverse. Usually, these moves are accompanied by unexpected surprises in the political or banking realm. Investors and their markets witnessed all last week.

In the U.S., the DJIA and S&P broke below their primary cycle lows of last August, but the NASDAQ held above its low of the previous week and then closed above its previous weekly high. Crude Oil made its yearly high on September 28, just one day before the Venus/Uranus square. It then collapsed to a new 5-week low one week later, on Friday, October 6.

Gold and Silver, like the DJIA, broke to the downside, with both plummeting to their lowest price since March. But on Friday, both posted very healthy rallies (reversals), right in line with our special Gold report issued Thursday morning. The U.S. Dollar, on the other hand, soared to its highest mark of the year last Monday, only to reverse sharply lower into Friday. Not to be outdone, Bitcoin surged early last week to its highest price since August 17. All of this in the week that Matt Gaetz staged a minority uprising in the U.S. House of Representatives to unseat Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who had just successfully engineered a deal to prevent another possible government shutdown with the bipartisan help of the opposing party. His reward? Both the Democrats (all of them) plus 8 of Gaetz’s Republican extremists booted him out. The chaos left in the week of government dysfunction is part of the Uranus business & political model.

Short-term geocosmics

I see the bad moon a-risin’
I see trouble on the way
I see earthquakes and lightnin’
I see bad times today

Credence Clearwater Revival, – “Bad Moon Rising”, 1969

 A key demand among far-right Republicans has been to kill off US funding of Ukraine’s effort to beat back the Russian invasion. One clear beneficiary of the political maelstrom in Washington appears to be Vladimir Putin, whose effort to crush his neighbor now depends in part on Western nations, and in particular the US, depriving Ukraine of the ability to defend itself. Bloomberg News, Evening Briefing, October 3, 2023.

Many of the offenses the rebels cited as grounds for deposing Mr. McCarthy were of their own making. How dare Mr. McCarthy fail to pass all 12 House spending bills by Sept. 30? How dare he then go to Democrats to get the votes to keep the government open? The insurgents engineered that outcome…The purpose of all this? Some Republicans noted that Mr. Gaetz’s antics were driven by his need for attention. The sad truth is that Washington has always been a town divided between those who put in the work and those who preen. – Kimberly Strassel, “Gaetz & Co: A Tale as Old as Time,” Wall Street Journal, October 6, 2023.

Yep, the King of Preen, taking advantage of a foolish Republican House policy that allows someone like Gaetz with such an overabundant need of recognition hunger to 1) provide support to Putin’s prediction that the U.S. and Europe would weary of war (and thus allow him to get away with murder, rape, kidnapping, and a host of other Plutonian war crimes and 2), allow an extremist minority group with less than 5% support from his colleagues to disrupt the operations of government against the will of the vast majority within its own party. Is that really how democracy works, or is it an example of taking the high moral ground that the Congressman claims he is following on behalf of the American people?

So the next potential government shutdown is scheduled for November 17, right in time for the Sun/Mars conjunction in Scorpio discussed in last week’s column. We are getting a glimpse of what that will be all about now as 1) Mars prepares to enter Scorpio this week, October 11-12, and 2) just 1-3 days after the two co-rulers of Scorpio (Mars and Pluto) are highlighted with Mars square Pluto this Sunday, October 8, and Pluto turning direct on Tuesday, October 10. That’s a lot of Pluto-Scorpio energy, which means enemies will be digging their feet in and refusing to budge, even if it means a threat to their survival (probably figuratively speaking, but you never know with these signatures how brutal it can be).

Think of Pluto and Scorpio like a hot, smoldering volcano where the lava is slowly winding down the mountainside, picking up steam as it lurches towards something sacred, something valuable, like property, a life, a relationship, or a position at work. Someone is going to get burnt if they don’t move out of the path of fire in time. It won’t pay to be relentless and uncompromising. On the other hand, you should be aware of who is coming after you or your job to exact revenge for personal reasons, even if they are not true (maybe more so if they are true). In Gaetz’s case, according to Strassel of the Wall Street Journal, Gaetz was “… furious that Mr. McCarthy wouldn’t break the (House) rules and somehow intervene to stop a (Ethics) probe into allegations [against Gaetz] of sexual misconduct and misuse of funds.” With Pluto now changing directions as Mars enters Scorpio, the threat of removal may suddenly reverse to taking Gaetz out.

The Mars-Pluto-Scorpio combination is not the only cosmic drama unfolding. Venus will also move into opposition to Saturn on Tuesday, October 10. Our rule is simple: any market declining into a hard aspect between Venus and Saturn is a candidate for a strong rally. Historically, this has more correspondence to the end of a rally in stocks. But Venus actually has more relevance to grain and currency markets.

In any event, the personal message with each of these applying signatures is similar: let it go and seek harmony. There’s a “bad moon rising” underway, and if you aren’t willing to be remorseful to correct and heal the pain you caused, karma’s gonna get you.