MMA FREE WEEKLY COLUMN FOR THE WEEK BEGINNING FEBRUARY 17, 2025

NOTE 1: This week, we welcome MMA market analyst Wyatt Fellows as our guest writer while Ray prepares for Sunday’s annual Forecast 2025 Market Webinar. Wyatt is currently MMA’s market analyst for the weekly and monthly Gold and Soybeans reports. He is also the editor of the MMA Monthly Grain Report. His analysis of each of the markets he covers in these reports (Gold, Grains, and Soybeans) has been extremely accurate over the past year. His next MMA Monthly Grain Report will be issued on February 26.

 NOTE 2: All major U.S. stock markets will be closed on Monday, February 17, in observance of Presidents’ Day.

 REVIEW

 As outlined in last week’s column, market volatility certainly did NOT let up this week. Markets that were particularly volatile were the stock market and metals. Both stocks and Gold rallied strongly on Monday and Tuesday before falling sharply on Wednesday following a hotter-than-anticipated CPI number. However, by the end of the day, both were back to nearly unchanged. The difference is how they ended the week. Stocks continued to build on Wednesday’s recovery and rallied right into Friday’s close. On the other hand, gold crashed and burned, falling over $74 from its early Friday morning high. Silver was even more dramatic, climbing over 4.5% on Friday to a new multi-month high, only to give it all back and settle lower on the day. Even Copper put in a massive bearish outside daily reversal lower.

Across the pond, the German DAX and London FTSE made new all-time highs again, but they were still unconfirmed by the Amsterdam AEX. In Asia, the Hang Seng and Shanghai SSE continued their bullish trends with the Nikkei also having a positive week. The NIFTY was the holdout with a lower weekly close.

In other markets, Bitcoin and Ethereum were range bound not providing much insight on direction. Crude Oil dropped a new weekly low of 70.22. This is now the 4^th week of decline off of the January 15 top and into the time band for a possible low. The real winner of this volatile and chaotic week might be the Wheat market. Wheat posted over a 4% gain on Friday alone. It also closed back above the $6 level for the first time since October of last year. After being in a bear market for over two years, the grains might just be returning to vogue.

SHORT-TERM GEOCOSMICS

 The skies are relatively quiet this upcoming week after a volatile week involving Mercury and a Full Moon in T-squares to Uranus. That is until next weekend, when the first leg of this “retrograde chaos” period comes to an end, with Mars turning back direct on February 23. But the marathon continues with the baton quickly being passed to Venus, who starts her retrograde motion on March 1. One market I will be paying close attention to is Gold during this time. Depending on whether last week was a primary cycle crest or not in Gold, we could be making an important high or low in this time period. However, Gold isn’t the only market that could have a reversal. Venus affects many markets, including financials, currencies, and soybeans. Any of these markets are candidates for a reversal within 10 days of March 1.

LONG-TERM GEOCOSMICS

Clearly, if Elon Musk really cuts US$2tn from the federal budget, that will reduce funding pressures considerably. The initial market impact would likely be a big rally in Treasury bonds and a rally in the US dollar. But there also would be a severe deflationary shock for the real economy, which, in the first instance, would surely be negative for equities.

—Chris Wood, “Why The Failure of DOGE Is Our Base Case,”, The Grizzle Research and Quant Report, grizzleresearch@substack.com, February 11, 2025.

The Department of Government Efficiency, or “DOGE” for short, has become a hot topic in recent weeks. Elon Musk and his team have been unearthing frivolous, wasteful, and corrupt spending in various departments of the US government. Some of the line items being reported are indeed quite shocking. However, it wasn’t until Musk and his team invaded the US Treasury that the gloves started to come off. Personally, I find what Musk and DOGE are doing to be refreshing and, quite frankly, necessary. Why shouldn’t a government with the power to audit its citizens not be held to the same standard? Having said that, I can appreciate the concerns and arguments being put forth over how it is being done and by whom.

This theme of government accountability, waste, and corruption seems to take hold in certain Western economies, starting with Argentina’s Milei and his “chainsaw” and now the United States with DOGE. This is happening as Neptune moves ever closer to leaving its ruling sign of Pisces and into a conjunction with Saturn at 0 degrees Aries in February 2026 (they will come within a degree of exactness this summer). The time surrounding this event has been referred to as the “Aries Vortex” by this column’s regular author, Ray Merriman. As an admitted “armchair astrologer,” this makes sense to me on a very basic level. Neptune can be deceptive, secretive, hidden, and filled with propaganda. Saturn is all about accountability and responsibility, a disciplined taskmaster, and a purveyor of justice. It seems Neptune’s veil of deceptive secrets is being lifted as it leaves Pisces, and Saturn’s “rubber meets the road” characteristics are taking over.

However, as Jupiter enters the fray by forming a square with both Saturn and Neptune this summer, we have to be able to accept the potential consequences of this proverbial “squaring up of the financial books.” The government is the largest employer in the United States. Making it more “efficient” likely means a lot of public sector workers could find themselves out of a job. In fact, layoffs and employee buyouts are already transpiring in certain government departments. Also, unless these expenditures deemed “wasteful” or “unnecessary” by DOGE are redirected to meaningful uses in the economy, they could become a strong deflationary force to be reckoned with. How will the stock market respond to rising unemployment and potentially less liquidity in the financial system? We may have our answer to this soon as we are due for a sharp decline to a three-year low in the stock market this year. This possibility is something Ray will be covering in this weekend’s Annual Forecast Webinar (see below).

The coming Saturn/Neptune conjunction also has a strong correlation to droughts over major grain-producing regions of the world. This is something I presented at last year’s MMA Investment Retreat in Lake Bled, Slovenia. Needless to say, a severe supply-reducing event like a drought can have a very positive influence on grain prices. This script may be playing out now that long-term lows for the grain markets look to have formed back in August 2024. With this column running long, perhaps I will expand on this in a future weekly column if I get another “tap on the shoulder” from above…😊.

Anyway, enough talk of potential stock market declines and epic droughts. It’s Valentine’s Day, after all! If you’re a subscriber to our weekly or monthly reports, take some of those trading profits we have generated over the last month and do something nice for someone you care about. Maybe take them out to dinner. Or surprise them with something they have been wanting (my wife has been eyeing a new set of cookware…that could be a win/win in my book!). Either way, let them know how much you appreciate them. Oftentimes, that is worth more than anything money can buy!

ANNOUNCEMENTS

 NOTE 1: THIS WEEKEND!!! MMA’s Annual Forecast 2025 Worldwide Webinar with Raymond Merriman. Sunday, February 16, 2025, Noon EST. From the comfort of your home or office, you can tune into Ray Merriman’s annual worldwide Forecast 2025 Webinar. This broadcast will address the themes from this year’s Forecast 2025 book, with special updates on financial markets since the book was written in November 2024. The markets covered will include the DJIA, NASDAQ, Gold, Silver, and Bitcoin, along with comments about NVIDIA and Stargate, including their founding and founders’ charts. Wiebke Held of Cologne, Germany, a top MMTA graduate and editor of the new MMA Tech Cycles Report, will be a special guest and share her outlook on the NASDAQ using MMA’s timing methodology. If unable to attend live, a video recording will be available the following day. The cost is $60 for this special three-hour webinar. Click here to register. All participants will also receive a free introductory copy of Wiebke’s new MMA Cycles Tech Report which will be launched February 18! Sign up now!

NOTE 2: FIRST ISSUE FREE TO THOSE ON THE FREE WEEKLY COLUMN MAILING LIST!! GET READY! The NEW monthly MMA Technology Cycles Report will launch on February 18!!! This new monthly report will be written by top MMTA graduate Wiebke Held of Cologne, Germany, whose excellent two-year research papers were based on extensive studies of long-, intermediate-, and short-term cycles in the NASDAQ spot index (not futures). This report will differ in style and substance from the other MMA monthly reports (it is more condensed and less technical). It will provide an outlook not only for the NASDAQ but also for the QQQ (ETF) and specific technology stocks such as NVIDIA, TSLA, and Apple. It will also include unique CRDs (critical reversal dates) specific to the NASDAQ, based on Held’s meticulous research. Focusing on the NASDAQ is crucial because of the outsized role technology will play in financial markets — especially with Pluto already in Aquarius for the next 20 years and Uranus about to enter Gemini for seven years, starting in July 2025. Additionally, much of this report will be generated by Wiebke’s own AI applications. Truly, this will be an exciting report, highlighting many new features of our technological renaissance. This is the future of market timing applications in this “New Aira.”

The first edition of the report will be issued complimentary to anyone on the mailing list for this free weekly column or to those who sign up for the February 16 MMA annual webinar on Forecast 2025. If you want to receive the FREE first issue of this new report, sign up for the weekly distribution list now at https://www.mmacycles.com/free-weekly-forecast/! Watch for it on February 18!

 NOTE 3: THE FEBRUARY ISSUE OF THE MMA Monthly Cycles Report was issued last week. It provides our outlook for the U.S. stock market, Gold, Silver, Copper, Treasuries, the Euro currency, Crude Oil, and Soybeans. Big changes are coming as we head into Mars Direct on February 23 and Venus retrograde on March 1!!! The MMA Monthly Cycles Report also provides MMA’s original geocosmic critical reversal dates (CRDs) and solar/lunar reversal dates for the next several weeks, as well as trading strategies for both position and aggressive traders. This is also an interesting period due to the consecutive occurrence of the personal retrograde planets through April 12. If you want to try a one-month subscription to the MMA Monthly Cycles Report, you can sign up for the February Report for only $35! Or save by ordering a three-report or twelve-report subscription.

 NOTE 4: MEET MMA ANALYSTS AT THE MARCH 7-9, 2025, COSMIC PATTERNS ASTROLOGY CONFERENCE IN ORLANDO, FLORIDA, FEATURING A SPECIAL FINANCIAL MARKET TIMING TRACK!!!

The Financial Track will include Raymond Merriman (USA), Christeen Skinner (UK), Gianni Di Poce (USA), Wiebke Held (Germany), Pouyan Zolfagharnia (UK), and Ulric Aspegrén (Switzerland). For more information on the event, as well as speakers’ topics and bios, click here. We look forward to seeing many of you there! To book a room at The Florida Hotel & Conference Center, where the event takes place, click here.

NOTE 5: THE “JUPITER REPORT“ — YOUR MOMENTS OF OPPORTUNITY — IS NOW AVAILABLE. This newest product is written by Raymond Merriman. It is a 30- to 40-page report that all traders (and even non-traders) will find highly valuable. It identifies the times during the year when Jupiter transits are highlighted in your natal chart. It delineates the meaning of Jupiter’s transits to your natal planets and angles over a 14-month period (including one month before your order and one month after the year ends). As an added bonus, each transit is ranked on a scale from –3 to +3 in terms of favorability for trading. Traders may find this especially valuable! Would you like to know when you are under a +3 transit and, therefore, most likely to experience trading successes? Or a –3 transit with a stronger-than-usual potential for misjudgments and losses? You betcha! The cost for your 14-month Jupiter Report is $69. Click here to order!!!

NOTE 6: The MMA Solar-Lunar App now offers reversal signals on the NASDAQ to all subscribers! The app now provides daily weighted values for four markets: the DJIA, NASDAQ, Gold, and Silver.

This app is an ideal tool to have in your back pocket if you are a short-term swing trader looking for high-probability dates that identify isolated lows and highs in the DJIA, NASDAQ, Gold, and Silver markets. It is available only on Apple products (iPhone and iPad) at this time, although we are getting close to developing it for Android phones as well, possibly by the end of this year.

To learn more about the MMA App, click here. To order it, go to the Apple App Store and search for Merriman Solar/Lunar Reversals.

 NOTE 7: The MMA Weekly YouTube show, “Geocosmic Week in Review and Look Ahead,” with Gianni Di Poce, airs on Wednesday evenings! Each 5- to 20-minute FREE episode reviews the previous week’s market activity and offers a preview of the geocosmic signatures in effect for the coming week and beyond.

NOTE 8: MMA’s Free Weekly Column Podcast Is Available on SPOTIFY, APPLE, and AMAZON! Now you can listen to a podcast of this weekly column, narrated by Thomas Miller, every Saturday! Thomas has an excellent voice and brings the weekly column to life in a personable and, at times, humorous fashion. Just follow Merriman Market Analyst on Spotify or Apple to listen to all our episodes. A new podcast episode will be released every weekend. This is a FREE service and is available to everyone. Check out our podcasts on Apple, Spotify, and Amazon Music. It makes for great listening!

NOTE 9: FORECAST 2025 IS NOW AVAILABLE in paperback, eBook, and audiobook!!!

 MMA’s annual Forecast book is the standard of astrological-themed almanacs that has served students of cycles and markets since 1976. It provides a cyclical outlook on collective world psychology, the national economy, geopolitical overview, socio-cultural trends, weather and natural calamities, as well as financial market projections for the U.S. stock market, U.S. Treasury market, interest rates, Gold and Silver, currencies (the Euro, U.S. Dollar, Swiss Franc, and Japanese Yen), Bitcoin, Crude Oil, and Grain markets. Additionally, it provides the three-star critical reversal dates for each market for 2025, which have historically achieved over 80% accuracy for trading cycles within an orb of three trading days.

The printed book is 200 pages, 8.5″ x 11″, and costs $66, but copies are limited. There are no second printings. Once they sell out, they are gone for good. The eBook version is available for $55 and has no limit. The Forecast 2025 Audiobook is also now available for $29.99, has no limit, and can be ordered by clicking here. The audio version does not include the financial markets section nor the ephemeris and geocosmic calendar for each month, which are included in the print and eBook versions. It covers only the first part of the book. The audio version is an excellent companion for workouts or driving, making it each for you to listen at your convenience.

 MMA also offers a special bundle discount for those who wish to order both the eBook and printed editions of Forecast 2025 for $86.

To order Forecast 2025 now, please click here.

EVENTS

 FEBRUARY 16, 2025: MMA’s Annual Forecast 2025 Worldwide Webinar with Raymond Merriman. It starts at noon EST. From the comfort of your own home or office, you can tune in to Raymond Merriman’s annual worldwide Forecast 2025 Webinar. This broadcast will address the theme from this year’s Forecast 2025 book, with updates on financial markets since the book was written in November 2024. This presentation will include trading plans for various financial markets based on the possibility of big moves related to the powerful geocosmic signature of mid-June 2025. A special guest will be Wiebke Held of Cologne, Germany, a top MMTA graduate and editor of the new MMA Tech Cycles Report. She will provide her outlook on the NASDAQ using the MMA timing methodology. If you are unable to attend live, a video recording will be available the following day. The cost is $60 for this special three-hour webinar. Registration for the Forecast 2025 Webinar is now open. Save the date — sign up now!

 MARCH 7-9, 2025: Cosmic Patterns Inc. presents its “Convergence 2025” conference in Orlando, Florida. This will be one of the top astrological conferences of 2025 and will include a track on Research and Financial Markets. MMA market analysts Ray Merriman, Gianni Di Poce, Pouyan Zolfagharnia, Ulric Aspegrén, and Wiebke Held will speak, along with well-known financial astrologer Christeen Skinner from the U.K. There will also be several other well-known professional astrologers speaking, including Lynn Bell, Charlotte Benson, Georgia Stathis, Öner Döşer, Pam Gallagher, Demetra George, Aleksandar Imsiragic, Dr. Lea Imsiragic, Rick Levine, Darri Low Murphy, Anne Ortelee, Joni Patry, Kathy Rose, Gisele Terry, and Fei Cochrane. For further information, please go to https://cosmicpatternsconference.com/. You can also hear and read about this exciting gathering on YouTube (click here).

SEPTEMBER 13, 2025: MMTA4 will begin! Plan ahead! Registration opens on April 15. Stay tuned for details!

Disclaimer and statement of purpose: The purpose of this column is not to forecast 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 of educating the reader on the relationship between astrological factors and collective human activities as they occur. In this regard, this report will often cite what happened in various stock and financial markets throughout the world in the past week and discuss those movements 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, month, or even years and the author’s understanding of how these signatures may affect human activity in the times to come. The author (Merriman) will do this from the perspective of a cycles 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 the psychological dynamics that underlie (or coincide with) the news events and their potential effect on financial markets.

 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 of this column assume any responsibility whatsoever for anyone’s trading or investment decisions. Readers of this report should understand that commodity futures and options trading are considered high-risk.