Attack the Week (ATW)
Look at the Stars / Weekly Calendar & Charts / PAAM Asset Allocation Model
Sunday Thoughts
It’s Sunday morning, and the euphoria of Friday seems to being dealt a blow as the Strait has been declared closed once again. I don’t know about you but this all is becoming a bit of a farce, which can be summarised in one simple picture.
Before we get into the usual macro business, I want to take a small detour into territory that doesn’t feature often enough in financial commentary. We often look at micro things rather than zooming out. Maybe we should zoom out much more sometimes.
I’ve long held the view that markets move in cycles. Not just the well-documented business cycles and credit cycles, but deeper, longer-duration patterns that repeat across decades and centuries. Any process that helps you identify where you are in a cycle has validity if it adds value to your decision-making. We don’t know what the future holds — nobody does — but I strongly believe that there are structural cycles in place that dominate financial markets, and that recognising them creates conditions that are either more or less favourable for your own investment framework.
One of the best traders I ever worked alongside used planetary cycles as a key input to her risk-taking. She was extremely successful and has since dedicated her life to astrology full-time. Enough said.
I bring this up because something genuinely unusual is happening in the sky this week, and given the macro backdrop we’re navigating, I think it’s worth laying out for those of you interested in cycles, timing, and the broader forces that shape market behaviour.
The Aries Stellium
Between April 15th and 20th, six celestial bodies converge in Aries: the Sun, Moon (new moon on the 17th), Mercury, Mars, Saturn, and Neptune. When this many planets cluster in a single zodiacal sign, astrologers call it a stellium — a rare concentration of energy. A six-body stellium is exceptionally uncommon. The last comparable clustering in Aries was April 2000, and that involved only four planets. Before that, you’d need to go back to the 1960s for anything similar in a cardinal fire sign.
The alignment peaks on the 19th and 20th, with a triple conjunction of Mercury, Mars, and Saturn. On top of that, Uranus moves into Gemini on April 25th, beginning a new seven-year transit — the kind of structural ingress that cycle analysts associate with lasting shifts in communication, technology, and trade.
Why Aries matters
Aries is the first sign of the zodiac — the initiator, the spark. It is ruled by Mars, the planet of action, conflict, and raw energy. In mundane astrology — the branch concerned with world events — Aries transits are associated with the outbreak or escalation of military conflict, assertive political leadership, and sharp, sudden directional pivots. When Mars transits its home sign, as it is now, the tradition associates it with heightened risk-taking, increased volatility, and a general sense that events are accelerating faster than the participants can fully process.
The sectors linked to Aries energy are precisely the ones dominating today’s tape: defence, energy, steel, and commodities. The overlap with the current macro environment is at least worth noting.
The Saturn-Neptune conjunction
This is the aspect generating the most discussion among cycle practitioners. Saturn represents structure, limitation, and constraint. Neptune represents oil, gases, liquids, and dissolution. One astrologer framed it with admirable economy: oil plus limitation equals energy crisis. The current Iran/Hormuz disruption maps onto this conjunction almost literally. And because Neptune remains in Aries until 2038, those who follow these cycles would argue that structurally cheap energy may be a thing of the past — that we’ve entered a new era where energy scarcity becomes a recurring theme rather than an occasional shock.
Historical parallels and the cycle evidence
This is where it gets genuinely interesting, regardless of where you sit on the philosophical spectrum. Prior Saturn-Neptune conjunctions and significant Aries stelliums have coincided with major geopolitical inflexion points with a consistency that deserves attention.
The previous Saturn-Neptune conjunction, in Capricorn in 1989, coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War, and the peak of the Japanese asset bubble. The one before that, in Libra around 1953, aligned with the Korean War armistice and a US recession. The Saturn-Uranus opposition of 2008 accompanied the global financial crisis.
The April 2000 Aries stellium — the closest historical analogue to this week — arrived right at the Nasdaq’s all-time high. The index had peaked on March 10th, and the stellium landed as the first leg of the tech crash was underway.
Going further back, concentrated Aries transits have coincided with the escalation phases of both World Wars. The 1939 Aries ingress of Mars preceded the outbreak of the European theatre. The concentrated Aries energy of spring 1914 preceded the cascade of events leading to the First World War. The pattern is consistent with the tradition’s interpretation: Aries clusters concentrate aggressive, impulsive energy, making conflict more likely and diplomatic resolution more fragile.
The cycle evidence, taken as a whole, suggests that periods of concentrated Aries energy tend to coincide with environments of heightened geopolitical risk, commodity volatility, and decisive — sometimes reckless — action by political leaders. Whether the planets cause this or simply mark the rhythm of deeper cycles that operate through human behaviour is a question I’ll leave to each of you. What matters to me as a practitioner is whether the pattern has predictive value. And the historical record is, at minimum, suggestive.
The current macro convergence
Here’s what makes this particular week so difficult to ignore, regardless of your framework. The celestial alignment is landing on top of a macro calendar that could hardly be more consequential. We are sitting at all-time highs on the S&P while fighting a war in the Middle East. Brent has eased from 100 USD. The Strait of Hormuz remains under Iranian control. The IMF has just cut global growth and raised its inflation forecast. A fragile ceasefire is holding by a thread. Kevin Warsh’s Senate confirmation hearing is on Tuesday. April PMIs drop later in the week. Tech earnings are starting. And core PCE is tracking toward 3.2% — the highest since late 2023.
The street’s latest macro thinking reinforces the tension. The front-contract oil price closed at its lowest since the conflict began, even as Trump ordered a Hormuz blockade — the oil curve is steepening, consistent with a short conflict but sustained higher commodity prices beyond it. The tech rally is real and fundamentally supported — China’s Q1 GDP beat, Asian exports are surging, and US IP growth is improving. But here’s the nuance most are missing: the tech investment cycle is currently inflationary, not disinflationary. US capital goods import prices are at pandemic-era highs. Copper has fully reversed its March losses. The broad commodity index is sitting near pandemic highs as pre-conflict tech-driven price increases have compounded with higher energy costs.
The de-escalation trade continues to work. Front-end European rates remain attractive, particularly in Sweden and the UK, where central banks have signalled patience. But the longer-term legacy of this conflict will be steeper curves and higher term premia — more inflation, more defence spending, more bond supply. Treasury curve steepeners remain compelling risk-reward. And the dollar debasement trade is bouncing back and deserves close attention heading into the Warsh hearings.
Cycles within cycles. Whether you read them in the stars, in the price action, or in the macro data, the message converges on the same point: we are at an inflexion, the energy is concentrated, and the next few weeks will set the direction for the rest of the year. Pay attention.
I highly recommend reading Macro D’s final instalment in the All Gates, All Barbarians series. This time, he analyses Europe’s road ahead.
We then read his latest Macro thoughts and Global FX implications before looking at the latest charts and dashboard update, the weekly macro calendar and the output of the asset allocation model, which bought equities last week after staying put for a month. Will it keep its allocation or change?
Let’s find out.
