Financial markets Archives - Astrological Musings

Tuesday November 10, 2009

Ponzi schemes and astrologer

by Lynn Hayes, reposted from July 2008.

I have always felt that if the Universe wanted us to be able to predict the future, It wouldn't have given us a life of mystery. The unfolding of the mystery and the ability to make choices every moment that affect the rest of our lives is a key part of our journey here.

An awareness of planetary cycles give us the ability to work with the planetary gods in order to maximize the potential of each cycle of change, but it doesn't give us the ability to predict the future. The gods do not reward hubris, as Icarus discovered when he flew too close to the Sun, and as soon as we believe we are beyond the boundaries of time and space our wings are likely to melt and we will likely fall back to Earth.

So I was not surprised to see this article linked from Astrococktail on the fall of Chartwell Enterprises:

CHARTWELL Enterprises used astrology to help predict stock market trends and profile investors, the Geelong Advertiser has learned.

The mystical learnings were explained as part of a system used for more than 20 years to global market trends, investors said.

The latest revelations follow a similar discovery on Tuesday that Graeme Hoy paid spiritual business planner Suzanne Goodchild an estimated $200,000 a year to help run the business.

Ms Goodchild confirmed she worked for Mr Hoy but refused to comment any further.

Open folders with investor details, seen by the Geelong Advertiser after staff rushed from the building following their sacking, showed a detailed analysis of star signs and what motivated an investor, from wealth creation to family and health.

"We were told it was part of the Gann investing system," said one investor, who fears she

has lost $5.7 million from three generations of her family.

"They (Chartwell) just kept telling us it was all part of Gann and had worked for years throughout the rest of the world.

"We didn't understand it, but we trusted them."

Documents seen by the Geelong Advertiser show the Gann system was reportedly invented by an Indian trader who claimed to have discovered a correlation between lunar cycles and global market trends.

The walls of Chartwell's Ryrie St offices were covered in stock charts over two floors and

were matched with lunar maps in a bid to align the moon's cycles to highs and lows on the world's stock exchanges.

Chartwell Enterprises, an Australian trading company, embodied the worst of the Pluto in Sag period - high risk trading in commodities that used investments of new recruits to pay off the older ones, a "Ponzi" scheme that offered returns of up to 70%.

It's hard to tell what kind of astrology was used by consultant Suzanne Goodchild (who was evidently on the payroll for $25,000a month)

, but it is nearly impossible to use astrology for successful trading for multiple investors. There are so many variables - the chart of the company being traded, the chart of the investment adviser and their current planetary cycles as well as those of the individual investors.

And then there's the Hubris factor, the danger of which in my mind cannot be overstated. Astrology puts us in touch with the gods, but it does not make us gods. To think otherwise is a very risky proposition!!

Update: It appears that Chartwell was just one of many Ponzi schemes, as we have since discovered. This matter is still under investigation.

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Filed Under: Chartwell, financial astrology, Ponzi

posted by Lynn Hayes @ 6:11am Permalink email icon

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Thursday October 29, 2009

Categories: Financial markets

Revisited: China, the face of Pluto in Capricorn

by Lynn Hayes

Nearly two years ago, when Pluto had first entered Capricorn, I wrote this post about the new balance of world power which will likely see China at its head:

Remember that Pluto rules over breakdown and destruction, followed by transformation. The elevation of Ceres to planet status has coincided with the eruption into mass consciousness of an acceptance (finally!!) of the need to protect the planet's resources. Capricorn is concerned with matters of business, factories, governments, anywhere things are made and commerce is conducted. The emergence of China as a world power, without the democracy that helps to put safeguards in place, is likely to be the focal point of the Pluto in Capricorn period. Already we are seeing the emergence of a deadly "people's revolution" to protest the devastation of the environment there that is likely to come to a head with the upcoming square of Uranus in Aries to Pluto in Capricorn.

Pluto is just finishing a square to the Midheaven in the (Sibley) chart of the United States, signifying a death and transformation in the position of the United States relative to the rest of the world. In addition, Mars in the US progressed chart recently turned retrograde and there is more of a sense of looking back and repairing past errors than moving forward into new frontiers.

Now comes this interview with George Soros in the Financial Times, echoing what astrologers have been saying since Pluto entered Capricorn and began to require that corrupt and decaying structures be removed and transformed. Soros says that the global economic system is broken and "needs to be reconstituted."

Soros is also using the keywords that strike fear into the hearts of conspiracy theorists everywhere: New World Order.

[Y]ou really need to bring China into the creation of a new world order, a financial world order. They are kind of reluctant members of the IMF. They play along, but they don't make much of a contribution because it's not their institution. Their share is not commensurate ... their voting rights are not commensurate to their weight, so I think you need a new world order that China has to be part of the process of creating it and they have to buy in.

The concept of the New World Order is symbolic of the consolidation of power that can occur when Pluto travels through Capricorn, and one of the dangers of the next 13 years or so is that the threat of this concentration of power becomes a reality. That will be more difficult when Uranus, the radical revolutionary, forms a square to Saturn and Pluto and threatens the foundations of these new powers but the overall trend towards consolidation will remain.

Soros reaffirms what I've been writing in these pages from an astrological point of view: that the economic downturn in the US is not over because the general economy is not healthy:

[A] decline in the value of the dollar is necessary in order compensate for the fact that the US economy will remain rather weak, will be a drag on the global economy. China will emerge as the motor replacing the US consumer and, of course, it's a smaller motor because the Chinese economy is much smaller. So the world economy will have less of a motor, so it will move forward slower than it has in the last 25 years. But China will be the engine driving it forward and the US will be actually a drag that's being pulled along through a gradual decline in the value of the dollar.

So it really is time to rebuild our own economic structures from the ground up and change the way we think about our finances and the life that we are living. There is still plenty of room for optimism and for expansion and to realize our dreams, but we must now do it within a context of realistic expectations. Focusing more on a vision of stability and security in our personal lives will help to lay the groundwork for similar realistic expectations for the US as a whole.

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Filed Under: China economy, Pluto in Capricorn, shrinking dollar, US economy

posted by Lynn Hayes @ 8:20am Permalink email icon

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Friday October 23, 2009

Categories: Financial markets

Conspiracy Corner: Our broken economy

by Lynn Hayes

Image from Alter Now I don't blame Obama - he inherited a disaster from the Bush administration and is in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. If he stood by and let the economy collapse so that it can be rebuilt, which is what I believe must happen, he would be tarred and feathered by just about everybody. And without a solid understanding of the astrological cycles and the fact that Pluto's entry into Capricorn began a systematic contraction in the financial system, it would make sense to pump money into the economy in order to save it.

Obama admirably wants at least an appearance of bipartisanship in Congress, but Congress won't cooperate. I'm afraid that his collaborative style of government, though effective, may not be workable in today's Saturn/Uranus atmosphere of duality and conflict. But I don't see that the alternative would be any more successful; a leader who ruled with an iron fist would generate enough opposition to inspire revolution. This is the pull between Saturn and Uranus - the status quo and the rebellion that resists it.

In addition, I am enough of a conspiracy theorist to believe that you can't get elected president without going to bed (figuratively) with the shadowy government that actually pulls the strings. My first clue to this was in Obama's selection of Geithner and Summers for his economic team. I can understand that Obama would want advisers who understand the system, and unfortunately that probably means advisers who are IN the system. But Geithner and Summers were part of the team that caused the problems that shook the economy in repealing the Glass-Steagall act which regulated big brokerage firms.

Under the current banking crisis, the big banks are eating up the small banks, just as the big corporations have eaten up the small ones. Only this time it is being subsidized by the taxpayers. The bigger these entities get, and the more corrupt they become, the bigger the collapse will be. I do not see this as something to be feared but rather as something necessary in order to equalize the basis of power which is the global economy.

Manipulation of the financial markets is nothing new; there is serious evidence that goes beyond conspiracy that the financial panics and crashes of previous eras were manipulated by international bankers. The Federal Reserve banks are not federal entities, but private corporations whose shares are sold to commercial banks. Shareholders elect the board of directors, which means that the banks control the Fed. But just try finding out who are these shareholders that are running our economic supply - it's impossible. The Federal Reserve has successfully rebuffed all Freedom of Information Act requests to discover this information.

It's a corrupt system, and part of a scam that has been going on for thousands of years beginning with the early Catholic Church which consolidated power and finance under one roof and turned the world into a serfdom. It does astonish me that in today's Internet age, where information is so freely available, that the people can still be so deluded by propaganda as to be convinced to resist the regulation of these big financial institutions.

In today's world, these powers don't have to collect backbreaking taxes. They merely convince the masses to invest in the stock market (remember George W Bush's plea for converting the Social Security system to an investment bank?) and then orchestrate a crash through rampant speculation and then the burst of a bubble. This is nothing new.

So what is the solution? Wake up and be informed. Invest your money wisely, resist the temptation to jump into a market that is ballooning for no reason. Saturn and Pluto will soon be at war, but since Saturn rules Capricorn through which Pluto is now traveling, it will be easier to integrate those two principles of death and rebirth (Pluto) with discipline and hard work (Saturn). But most of all, speak more loudly than your more ignorant neighbors and tell your congresspeople that you want regulation of these financial institutions.

Once Uranus enters the picture next spring there will be more energy for resistance and change. For now, educate yourself and your neighbors, and let the spread of wisdom overcome this cancer.

Comments (16)

Filed Under: federal reserve, Geithner, investment bank conspiracy, market manipulation

posted by Lynn Hayes @ 6:35am Permalink email icon

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Friday October 16, 2009

Categories: Financial markets

Dow above 10,000: The audacity of hope collides with Saturn and Pluto

by Lynn Hayes

As Jupiter turned direct this week, the Dow rose above 10,000 for the first time in over a year, inspiring many financial experts to crow that the recession is over. The stock market has been in a continual upward climb since it fell to its lowest level in March of this year, driven primarily by optimism that an improving housing market and the recovery of the financial companies will drive the economy back into gear.

We can tie this recovery to a conjunction of Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune that began back in February and while for many people this has been a planetary cycle of deep personal growth, there is always the danger when Jupiter's optimism combines with Neptune's propensity to ignore the facts that we fall into illusion.

Articles like this entitled "Record Streak Continues for Pending Home Sales" are fueling the optimism: "Pending home sales have increased for seven straight months, the longest in the series of the index which began in 2001, according to the National Association of Realtors®." This is deceptive in a couple of ways: first, the market seven months ago was at its worst in decades; and second, much of the increase in home sales is driven by the tax credit for first-time home buyers. Meanwhile, foreclosure levels just hit a new record, affecting 1 in 136 American homeowners. More foreclosures means more housing inventory, which means a continued slide in prices.

A drop in the number of people filing for unemployment insurance also fueled optimism on Wall Street, but these numbers don't reflect the vast numbers of people whose right to unemployment insurance has expired. The national unemployment rate of 9.8% does not include the numbers of workers who have given up on finding a job - that number is estimated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics at 17%.

I suspect that Jupiter's change of direction is the major culprit in the overwhelming desire to see the good in a bad situation. Optimism is a beautiful thing, but I wouldn't be investing in the stock market right now unless you want to ride it for a couple of weeks. Saturn is moving into Libra at the end of October (more on that coming up soon), and Saturn changing signs usually demands a wake-up call of some kind. Saturn creates tests in whatever sign it moves through, and in Libra, ruled by Venus which is the planet of attraction and wealth as well as love, there could be some interesting financial situations.

Saturn last entered Libra back in the fall of 1980, coinciding with a decline in the GDP and a rise in the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate exceeded 10% and peaked in November of 1982, just as Saturn and Pluto conjoined in Libra, and the economic situation began to improve once Saturn entered Scorpio, the sign of investing and other people's money.

I am afraid that when Saturn and Pluto face off in November and December there may be a sharp awakening. This is a good time for saving and gathering what we need for the winter. There will be a break in the clouds next spring which will provide another opportunity for optimism in the stock markets.

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Filed Under: Dow above 10000, Financial astrology, financial recovery, Saturn in Libra

posted by Lynn Hayes @ 6:04am Permalink email icon

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Friday September 18, 2009

Categories: Financial markets, Future Shock

Gerald Celente: Revolution or Renaissance?

by Lynn Hayes

One year after the fall of Lehman Brothers presaged a worldwide economic crisis, futurist Gerald Celente is predicting that a revolution has already begun in the United States. Many are decrying his "doom and gloom" predictions, but he is saying exactly what I have been saying myself: that you can't keep repairing a house that is built on quicksand. The house has to be taken down and rebuilt on a firmer footing.

To recap the astrological history: The entry of Pluto into Capricorn in January of 2008 led to a panic in the stock market as it became clear that the expansion of the Pluto in Sagittarius era could not go on forever. Pluto brings cultural transformation, and astrologers knew that when Pluto entered Capricorn the structures on which we base our lives (Capricorn), including government, financial and educational systems, and religious institutions would be forever transformed.

But even before this Saturn was paving the way to an increased sense of thriftiness when it entered Virgo back in the fall of 2007. Suddenly there was the beginning of a shift towards savings and conservative attitudes towards money as the subprime mortgage fiasco began to build.

Evidently Celente couldn't get anyone in the US to listen, so he has taken his message to Russia Today:

"It hasn't ended. That was only the beginning. We are going to see a lot more. There is no recovery, it's a cover-up. They're covering it up with stimulus packages, with buy outs, with bailouts - it's not going to fix the problem."

I personally don't believe that the coverup is intentional - I think there is a desperate attempt to get back to where the financial system was a few years ago, using the same tools. But as financial analyst Max Wolff says, as quoted in this article:

"Let's put it this way: in order to have a 20 to 30 trillion dollar global blow-up, you don't have a few bad apples and you don't have a few simple mistakes - you have everybody basically bought in on a system that's fundamentally unsound."

In this video interview of Celente it is clear that he's not an alarmist. As far as I can tell, he is merely trying to get people to wake up to the fact that the times have changed. Astrologers are looking ahead to the upcoming square from Uranus (revolution) in Aries (war and aggression) with Pluto (transformation, death and rebirth) in Capricorn (social structures) and realizing that some kind of revolution is going to take place. For some time I have felt that the period from 2010 to 2014 (especially 2012-2013 when this aspect is at its tightest) will bring revolutionary conflict between those who have (Capricorn) and those who don't (Uranus in Aries). This won't be traditional war as we have known it, between countries. This is a people's revolution that will spread all over the world.

Celente says that it doesn't have to be like this. If the governments of the world recognize what's going on here and work to rebuild the financial system, this collapse can lead to a renaissance and transformation of our world. Like me, he says "let's the banks that are too big to fail, fail." Let's start again from scratch on a solid foundation.

Unfortunately, though, the powers that run the banking system have too much to gain by retaining the status quo. If you're not convinced, take a look at the Vanity Fair article about how the bailout money (approved by previous president George Bush, remember) has been wasted. And our Congress, supported by lobbyists and special interests on both sides of the aisle, just go along with it.

Celente is predicting the emergence of a new third party which he's calling "Progressive Libertarian" in 2012. To me this follows the astrology nicely - the Uranian influence will increase the desire of Americans to be liberated (Uranus) from the clutches of the two party system (Capricorn).

Watch the video and see what you think.

Update: here is an interesting interview with Celente.

Comments (10)

Filed Under: financial recovery, Gerald Celente, Trends Research Institute

posted by Lynn Hayes @ 8:18am Permalink email icon

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Thursday September 10, 2009

Categories: Financial markets

"Fed survey shows recession may be over"

by Lynn HayesAnd I'm as big an optimist as anyone so I'd like to believe it. The Federal Reserve surveyed businesses around the US and "found economic activity stabilizing or improving in most regions." However, this growth is dependent upon...

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