AstroEcon 
Financial Astrology 
and Technical Analysis
On line continuously since January of 1996
Special Report 
Posted 10/18/2006

Written by Robert Hitt

COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
Please pass this article on to anyone who has an interest in using astrology for trading.

The death of pit trading. 

And a story line about how markets have changed since 1997. 
Also why the astro works VERY differently now than it did in 1997. 

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a8GgN.5Mj3TQ&refer=news

I have had requests by some of my old subscribers to do intraday calls again using angle hits like I did back in the late 90's. The above article on the CME and CBOT merger is the reason behind why I wont do it. But there is a lot more than just this merger to consider. This aint your granddaddy's market any more. 

 Back in 1997 I was invited to the CME by a well established local. I was allowed to go down in the pit with him and I felt like I was going inside a living animal .... a "beast" of rising and falling emotions. This was back in the day of the big S&P contract and before the Emini. Spoos were king. 

I realized then standing in the pit that the planets passing over the midheaven and ascendant axis in Chicago were having an effect due to the trading being so focalized on ONE LOCATION where humans were running things.. In those days the spoos pit drove the cash trading because the traders in the spoos pit could react MUCH FASTER than the cash in NY. 

I did research on this insight when I got home and sure enough it was a correct hypothesis. For a few years thereafter I went though periods of almost unbelievable good work in calling the small time frame changes in the MOOD OF THE TRADER IN THE PIT. Wow what fun!!!

A massive amount of trading went on then playing off the premium swings on the spoos contract vs cash which was slow to react in price in the late 90s. From that developed computer driven trading in NY to react to the changes in Chicago faster. I guess the NYERS got tired of having their butts kicked so much.. The premium and cash prices then began to be much more focused in the same time line. THEN in an attempt to get back the time edge the CME created the EMINI. I went back in the pit in 1999 and was able to stand next to the guy running the new Emini contract from behind the pit and showed him my astro technique working in real time. Wow what a day. I did not know it then but I was seeing the beginning of the end of pit trading that day and also the end of astro trading as it had been done for many years. 

Then came 911. Exchange officials had a major weakness exposed that day. The focalized trading of  the CME in the pit by humans or on the NYSE trading floor was vulnerable to outside threats. Decisions were made in DC after 911 to decentralize trading using electronic order taking and execution. So what happened was the human element was being taken out of execution and trading bypassed the pit more and more. There was also not specific PLACE to work the intraday angle method any more. I know a few spoos traders who had a very hard time coping with this. Liquidity in the pit dried up to a point where traders used to trading 100 cars at a time like gunslingers had a hard time dealing with 10 cars at a time. The buggy was now driving the horse.

I realized after 911 that this new reality negated the method I was using for intraday work. No focal point location and way less emotion was in play as well. The reaction time speed of trading continued to accelerate to a point where computers and black boxes attached to them are something like 90% of trading now. Computers are now running markets and NOT PEOPLE. Spreads are thin and profits on each trade have gone from dollars to pennies. No wonder volume is so high. It has to be high to make any money. 

So now when we use can astro it is way different. A new methodology is required and I have been working on this for the last few years.. The short duration astro effects are either already in the black box as an intentional component OR the algorithms and number crunching of supercomputers have distilled the astro effects from past market behavior. If that be the case then the intuitive mind is the ONLY thing faster than that. If you want to be a prop trader and gunslinger now a lack of intuition is going to become your pink slip. 

Sooo the astro works but OFTEN the turns are coming IN AHEAD of the astro due to black box systems anticipating it. We used to make money in 10 minutes and now it can take 10 weeks. Risk management by moving stops behind a multi week trade is a key to working in a longer time frame. I demonstrated this when you saw my QQQ trade from 40 to 42 executed in the last few weeks. If you want to make money now as an individual you have to hold overnight .. The side benefit of the light speed in markets now is it does allow a little lower risk holding things like the QQQ overnight because there is less tendency to gap hard through a stop on the open. Computers fading each other 24 hours a day have taken the volatility out of the moves also. LOLOL it is almost to a point that the best traders can work a day job flipping burgers and trade at the same time. 

You have seen my reports over the last few years change a LOT. I have increased the weighting on the political side of the equation because that is where PEOPLE are moving markets and EVENTS generated in that arena still have maximum effect.. 
I went to a LOT MORE TO BIG PIC TURN CALLING in my reports for a REASON. 
Over the last few years I have become quite good at finding those shit happens time slots when black box computers run into speed bumps and trends are prone to change. The goings on in August an OBVIOUS demonstration of astro effects moving forward in time due to politics and computer trading. The lows were due at the end of August but the black box computers anticipated it. 

Hopefully at some point down the road I will get a bit of credit for seeing things as they are and changing my methodology ahead of almost everyone else in this astro biz to deal with the real world as it is. If you want to use astro to scalp pennies day trading I say best of luck.. I think you arm is too short to box with god but maybe you are THAT good.

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