Eclipse could prompt share fall, astrologer says

LONDON, Mar 29 (Reuters) Wednesday's solar eclipse has already awed observers around the globe and one financial astrologer says its effects could yet be felt in falling share markets, as eclipses herald times of dramatic change.

Henry Weingarten, managing director of the Astrologers Fund in New York, sees a correction of at least 10 per cent in the Dow Jones Industrial average over the next 90 days following the eclipse, which came a day after a widely expected U.S.

interest rate rise.

The Astrologers Fund is a financial consultancy that manages private money globally, using astrology as one of a range of tools to analyse markets.

Weingarten said in a telephone interview that eclipses took on the flavour of other events running at the same time.

''Part of the flavour of an eclipse is because of what's going on. It's not necessarily up or down for the markets but what are the other astrological conditions,'' he said.

''In the United States we're expecting a number of potential crises over debt. There are 37 things that we've identified that can go wrong,'' he said.

''The (Dow) market in our opinion will be testing 10,000 and the Nasdaq 2,000 over the 90 days because of these crises ...one of them is probably a dollar crisis as well.'' The Dow closed at 11,154.54 points on Tuesday and the Nasdaq at 2,304.46.

Weingarten recommends that investors ''think Swiss'' as the effects of the eclipse make themselves known.

''We're in the risk zone now. Normally people do a portfolio review at the end of the year. We're saying do it now. Think Swiss-like, be conservative, be cash rich, have some gold and basically get rid of the higher-risk parts of your portfolio,'' Weingarten said.

REUTERS SD HT1938