Sell in May - Buy in October

Credits: Jeff Hirsch

Jeff Hirsch (Sep 16, 2015) - Prior to about 1950, farming was a major portion of the U.S. economy and from 1901-1950, August was the best performing month of the year, up 36 times in 49 years (market closed in August 1914 due to World War I) with an average gain of 2.3%. July was the second best month, up 31 of 50 with an average gain of 1.5%. June was fourth best, averaging 0.9%. Why, you may ask. In a single word, harvesting. As crops were brought to market and sold, cash began to move and so did the stock market.

Agriculture’s share of GDP began to shrink post World War II as industrialization created a growing middle class that moved to the suburbs where hard-earned salaries would be spent filling new homes with all the modern conveniences we all take for granted now. Farming became more efficient and fewer and fewer people worked on the farm. Suddenly, summer was less about the hard work of harvesting crops and more about vacations and relaxing. As the economy evolved and peoples’ lives changed, the market evolved. June and August went from being top performing months to bottom performing months. August went from #1 to #10 in 1950-2014 with an average loss of 0.1%. June went from #4 to #11 (–0.3% average loss). The shift in DJIA’s seasonal pattern is clear in the [above] chart. “Sell in May” is a post WWII pattern, prior to then it would have been “Buy in May”.

China's Raw Materials Consumption

Visual Capitalist (Sep 11, 2015) - Over the last 20 years, the world economy has relied on the Chinese economic growth engine more than it would like to admit. The 1.4 billion people living in the world’s most populous country account for 13% of global GDP, which is significant no matter how it is interpreted. However, in the commodity sector, China has another magnitude of importance. The fact is that China consumes mind-bending amounts of materials, energy, and food. That’s why the prospect of slowing Chinese growth is likely to continue as a source of nightmares for investors focused on the commodity sector.

China consumes a big proportion of the world’s materials used in infrastructure. It consumes 54% of aluminum, 48% of copper, 50% of nickel, 45% of all steel, and 60% of concrete. In fact, China has consumed more concrete in the last three years than the United States did in all of the 20th century. China is also prolific in accumulating precious metals – the country buys or mines 23% of gold and 15% of the world’s silver supply. With many mouths to feed, China also needs large amounts of food. About 30% of rice, 22% of corn, and 17% of wheat gets eaten by the Chinese. Lastly, the country is no hack in terms of burning fuel either. Notably, China uses 49% of coal for power generation as well as metallurgical processes in making steel. It also uses 13% of the world’s uranium and 12% of all oil.

China’s Middle Class Growing Explosively

While the Long Noses are converting good parts of the world - including most of their home countries - into disaster zones and failed states, half a billion Chinese are ascending into the middle class: In 2010 mainstream consumers—those with enough money to buy cars, fridges and phones but not Rolls-Royces—made up less than a tenth of urban Chinese households. McKinsey predicts that only by 2020 the income-middle class will grow by 1,000% to make up well over half of the Chinese population while the percentage of the very poor will be cut in half. Credits: McKinsey + The Economist

Most Commodities Historically Cheap

Many of the commodities seem to have had a consistently decreasing real price prior to the last 100 years. Commodities that look particularly cheap are generally agricultural ones while the more industrial based commodities seem to be at the more expensive end of history, in part fueled by significant demand from China over the past decade. This is particularly true when looking at data over the past 100 years. Precious metals also look expensive from a historical stand-point, which probably reflects the post-1971 fiat currency regime we currently operate in. One of the problems with this analysis is that the importance of these commodities changes over time as does the cost of mining them. Source: Deutsche Bank (2015)  - Long-Term Asset Return Study.

The Rise and Fall of Modern Empires

America’s global economic dominance has been declining since 1998, well before the Global Financial Crisis. A large part of this decline has actually had little to do with the actions of the US but rather with the unraveling of a century’s long economic anomaly. China has begun to return to the position in the global economy it occupied for millenia before the industrial revolution.

In 1950 China’s share of the world’s population was 29%, its share of world economic output (on a PPP basis) was about 5%. By contrast the US was almost the reverse, with 8% of the world’s population the US commanded 28% of its economic output. By 2008, China’s huge, centuries-long economic underperformance was well down the path of being overcome. Based on current trends China’s economy will overtake America’s in purchasing power terms within the next few years. The US is now no longer the world’s sole economic superpower and indeed its share of world output (on a PPP basis) has slipped below the 20% level which we have seen was a useful sign historically of a single dominant economic superpower. In economic terms we already live in a bipolar world. Between them the US and China today control over a third of world output (on a PPP basis). Source: Deutsche Bank (2015)  - Long-Term Asset Return Study.

SPX vs MER-MAR Speed Differential

Peak Everything: Bonds - Equity - Real Estate

Credits: Deutsche Bank

Looking at three of the most important assets (bonds, equities and housing) across 15 DM countries, with data often stretching back two centuries, we are currently close to peak valuation levels relative to history. Indeed when aggregated, current levels are higher on average across the three asset classes than they were back in 2007/08 and certainly higher than in 2000. At the equity market peak back in the summer months of 2015 we were pretty much at the peak. Source: Deutsche Bank (2015)  - Long-Term Asset Return Study.

SPX vs MER-VEN Cycle

The Lowest Interest Rates in 5,000 Years

Sources: Bank of England, Global Financial Data, Homer and Sylla "A History of Interest Rates".

Blood Moon Ends Lunar Tetrad - SuperMoon Lunar Eclipse on September 28

Credits: NASA

A rare celestial event is scheduled for September 28, 2015 - a total Lunar Eclipse and the closest SuperMoon of the year. This Full Moon is also known as the Harvest Moon, and Blood Moon, because it ends the current Lunar Tetrad - series of 4 consecutive total eclipses occurring at approximately six month intervals.

There's much talk about the Seven Year Shemitah Cycle and related stock market crashes. However, eclipses occur near the Lunar Nodes: Solar eclipses (September 13) when the passage of the Moon through a Node coincides with the New Moon, and Lunar Eclipses (September 28) when the passage coincides with the Full Moon (HERE + HERE).

SoLunar Intraday Maps - September 2015

The charts show the hourly solunar forces over Wall Street. Intraday movements of financial markets are strongly influenced 
by daily and intraday solunar forces. They usually closely follow their direction - either directly or inverted. Turning points can
be fine-tuned using the previously described planetary hours as well as the times of rising, culminating and setting planets.
Please note: Times are EST (not EDT). Maps of previous months are HERE

Financial Fascism - The Elimination of Physical Currency

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of
state and corporate power.” ― Benito Mussolini, 1932

Paul Joseph Watson (Aug 28, 2015) - The Financial Times has published an anonymous article which calls for the abolition of cash in order to give central banks and governments more power. Entitled "The case for retiring another ‘barbarous relic’", the article laments the fact that people are stockpiling cash in anticipation of another economic collapse, a factor which is causing, “a lot of distortion to the economic system.”

“The existence of cash — a bearer instrument with a zero interest rate — limits central banks’ ability to stimulate a depressed economy. The worry is that people will change their deposits for cash if a central bank moves rates into negative territory,” states the article. Complaining that cash cannot be tracked and traced, the writer argues that its abolition would, “make life easier for a government set on squeezing the informal economy out of existence.” Abolishing cash would also give governments more power to lift taxes directly from people’s bank accounts, the author argues, noting how “Value added tax, for example, could be automatically levied — and reimbursed — in real time on transactions between liable bank accounts.”

Totalitarianism of the European Financial Oligarchy - Votes change nothing!

The writer also calls for punishing people who use cash by making users “pay for the privilege of anonymity” so they will, “remain affected by monetary policy.” Dated bank notes would lose their value over time, while people would also be charged by banks for swapping electronic reserves for physical cash and vice versa. The article echoes an argument made by Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, who has called for high denomination banks notes such as the €100 and €500 notes to be phased out of existence. Rogoff attended a meeting in London earlier this year where he met representatives from the Federal Reserve, the ECB as well as participants from the Swiss and Danish central banks. The issue of banning cash was at the forefront of the agenda. Last year, Rogoff also called for “abolishing physical currency” in order to stop “tax evasion and illegal activity” as well as preventing people from withdrawing money when interest rates are close to zero. 

The agenda to ban cash was also discussed at this year’s secretive Bilderberg Group meeting, which was attended by the Financial Times’ chief economics commentator Martin Wolf. Former Bank of England economist Jim Leaviss penned an article for the London Telegraph earlier this year in which he said a cashless society would only be achieved by “forcing everyone to spend only by electronic means from an account held at a government-run bank,” which would be, “monitored, or even directly controlled by the government.” In the UK, banks are treating the withdrawal of cash in amounts as low as £5,000 as a suspicious activity, while in France, citizens will be banned from making cash payments over €1,000 euros from Tuesday onwards. The withdrawal and deposit of cash over the amount of €1,000 euros will also be subject to ID verification. “There is no more egregious anti-liberty economic policy imaginable than banning cash,” writes Michael Krieger. “Of course, if cash were involuntarily “ended,” there would be a surge in demand for physical gold and silver, which would then necessitate a ban on those items. Then the cycle of economic and financial tyranny would be complete, and crawling our way out of it, nearly impossible.”

VIX vs 4 Lunar Year Cycle

Upcoming Astro Phenomena - September 2015

Traditional Aspects
Sep 05 (Sat) = SUN 120° PLU
Sep 06 (Sun) = VEN (D)
Sep 13 (Sun) = New Moon =  Solar Eclipse
Sep 17 (Thu) = JUP 180° NEP
Sep 19 (Sat) = VEN 0° URA [helio]
Sep 20 (Sun) = SUN 90° Galactic Center
Sep 22 (Tue) = VEN 120° URA
Sep 24 (Thu) = PLU (D)
Sep 25 (Fri) = MAR 90° SAT
Sep 28 (Mon) = Super Full Moon + Lunar Eclipse 

SoLunar CITs (HERE)
Sep 02 (Wed), Sep 06 (Sun), Sep 10 (Thu), Sep 13 (Sun), Sep 17 (Thu), Sep 21 (Mon), Sep 24 (Thu), Sep 28 (Mon) 

Cosmic Cluster Days (HERE)
Sep 01 (Tue), Sep 03 (Thu), Sep 07 (Mon), Sep 08 (Tue), Sep 15 (Tue), Sep 19 (Sat), Sep 30 (Wed) 

Bradley Siderograph CITs (HERE)
Sep 03 (Thu), Sep 05 (Sat), Sep 24 (Thu), Sep 29 (Tue) 

Planets vs Galactic Center (HERE)
Sep 20 (Sun) = SUN 90° GC 

SUN and Planets @ 14°Cancer (HERE)
Sep 20 (Sun)

Natural Trading Days (HERE)
Fall Equinox = Sep 23 (Wed) 

Radio Flux 10.7 cm Forecast CITs (HERE)
Sep 1 (Tue), Sep 4 (Fri), Sep 11 (Fri), Sep 20 (Sun), Sep 30 (Wed) 

Sensitive Degrees of the SUN (HERE) 
Sep 02 (Wed) 15:04 = SUN @ 10° VIR  -
Sep 04 (Fri) 16:38 = SUN @ 12° VIR  +
Sep 05 (Sat) 17:23 = SUN @ 13° VIR  -
Sep 21 (Mon) 03:08 = SUN @ 28° VIR  +
Sep 25 (Fri) 05:15 = SUN @ 02° LIB  -

10.7 cm Flux is considered a sunspot-proxy. Source: NOAA

SPX vs Sunspots

 

Sunspots shifted +49 days

SPX vs SUN-JUP Cycle

The SoLunar Map signals a turn down today.
Well, the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index (SSEC) did tank again.

Calculated and charted with Timing Solution.

Expected Future S&P 500 Earnings

Source: Political Calculations

China bigger Risk than Lehman, Greece, US Fiscal Problems?

Source: Torsten Sløk, Deutsche Bank Securities - found @ Barry Ritholtz

SPX vs Planetary Hours + SoLunar Intraday Map (Aug 25-26)

SPX (5 min. bars - Aug 25-26)

See also HERE

Times are EST (not EDT) - intraday HERE and daily HERE 

The Chart Whisperer Exlaining the Nature of this Crash

HERE

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HERE