Full Moon

Is September 2015 going to be one of the most important months in modern American history?

The sun has had three major "X-Class" solar flares on its surface in the past two days that have affected communications on Earth and could send a shockwave through Earth this Friday (the 13th), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As ABC reports, the “solar events” caused brief blackouts in high frequency communications when they struck, twice on Tuesday morning and once this morning. One of the flares created a “coronal mass ejection” that actually could come into contact with Earth on Friday, according to NOAA, and could cause a minor geo-magnetic storm.

It seems blood on Iraq streets and infringements near oil reserves is enough to pop crude oil price, break the airlines bubble, stall the Trannies unstoppable surge, and spark volume selling through the US equity markets. We will be reassured that this is a buying opportunity and that 'nothing fundamental has changed' and the US is 'the cleanest dirty shirt' but when the Chinese are tamping down carry with flip-flopping CNY fixes, the ECB has shot his mini-bazooka, and we know the Fed ain't un-tapering anytime soon (as they are fearsome of complacency and financial fragility), it makes one wonder if the corporate buyback machine can overwhelm the geopolitical-risk selling pressure of the rest of the world. Trannies dropped to their worst day in 4 months as all major US equities reversed any Draghi gains. Treasuries were well bid (-6bps and lower in yield on the week) as gold also benefited from safe haven status rising up to $1275. Copper slipped further south. Oil was the big news, spiking up to $106.70 (9 month highs). It's not Tuesday - what did you expect? (and remember there are no Friday POMOs in June).

As meteorologists have been repeating all day, the biggest threat for NYC is not so much the rain, or even the wind, dangling cranes hundreds of feet above ground notwithstanding, but the storm surge. The threat here is that Hurricane Sandy will hit land just as the tide comes in, resulting in a double whammy which Wunderground has called a "gigantic bulge of water that will raise waters levels to the highest storm tides ever seen in over a century of record keeping." Add to this the impact of the full moon, which means that high tide will be 5% higher than average for the month, and Wunderground's conclusion is inevitable: "This is a higher destructive potential than any hurricane observed since 1969, including Category 5 storms like Katrina, Rita, Wilma, Camille, and Andrew." How high are we talking: Sandy's storm surge will be capable of overtopping the flood walls in Manhattan, which are only five feet above mean sea level... According to the latest storm surge forecast for NYC from NHC, Sandy's storm surge is expected to be 10 - 12' above MLLW. Since a storm tide of 10.5' is needed to flood the subway system, it appears likely that portions of the NYC subway system will flood." Luckily for all, the NY Fed's tungsten gold, which is 50 feet below sea level (and 80 feet below the surface) and is in the Zone C flood evacuation area, will be perfectly "safe." And after all tungsten gold will never just float away.

While John Travolta will always love 'Sandy', New York City (and for that matter much of the Atlantic Coast) may well want to forget the name after the weekend. Tropical Storm Sandy is destined to roll into the mid-Atlantic and New England from Friday but has some extra-special surprises possible with it. As Wunderground notes, if Sandy gets caught up with a trough approaching the Eastern US and then that combines with the fact that Monday is a full moon - meaning astronomical tides will be at their peak, increasing storm surge concerns, we could see a replay for the 1991 'Perfect Storm' that wreaked so much personal and property damage. We hear California is nice this time of year?

There are only a few market prognosticators who can look to the stars for sage advice and not come away being giggled at. Art Cashin, UBS venerable trader-in-chief, notes that this weekend will see the biggest full moon of the year from the perspective of the Earth. This so-called 'Supermoon' will exert 42% more tidal force than normal and given the human body is 70% water, one can only imagine the bipolar impacts that this extra-terrestrial 'pressure' will create on the tiny minds of traders. What is more spooky is the fact that there is an unusual astrological configuration, not seen since 9/11, also occurring this weekend and rather worryingly The Times of Israel is noting the call-up of Emergency Israeli Troops in response to the worsening situation in the Sinai. So our minds will be wondering from an out-of-world experience and at the same time developments in the already unstable Middle East crank up one more notch on the Spinal-Tap-amplifier of sabre-rattling.

In light of an especially noteworthy Full Moon, both gold bugs and those who are particularly 'in tune' with the waves of collective social mood (akin to social tuning forks) ought to remain extra cranky for an additional few days. 02:28:xx, Wednesday morning (12.2.09), marked a Full Moon; we at Fibozachi always reference time in EST, which is universal 'market time' while everything else is just ‘noise,’ though apparently there is something other than just dead 401(k) money scattered across mutual fund sub-accounts domiciled in Manhattan/ Boston (equities), Chicago (commodities) and Newport Beach (bonds).