Arch Crawford sees signs of a nuclear attack.

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Had there been a stock market in 44 B.C., it certainly would have been rattled by the assassination of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March.

Today is the anniversary of that regime change.

According to Shakespeare, it was foreseen in the stars.

What do the stars hold for stock investors today?

You might not want to know.

The first place to turn for that answer is Tucson stargazer and stock analyst Arch Crawford.

I briefly scanned his February newsletter and something stood out — "Look for another particularly bad down day on Feb. 28." I checked our Business section on the following day and right up there in the corner, red arrows pointing south, the Dow Jones average down 104.14.

"Arch" is starting to rhyme with "ouch."

Currently, Crawford told me Tuesday, we are going through "an excruciating time" with a series of "powerful dates" lined up like icebergs in a shipping lane over the next several weeks.

Crawford sees ominous signs of potential terrorist attacks, possibly nuclear and pointing to the New York City area or elsewhere on the Eastern Seaboard between now and mid-April.

Beyond that awful scenario, he thinks the stock market in general is in for a precipitous crash in the second half of the year.

Somebody get this guy some ice cream!

So powerful is the alignment of the heavens, he says, that the bad vibes are spilling over into personal affairs. He recently went through a divorce, and he says his friends in astrology and counseling report being swamped with calls from frantic clients.

Come to think of it, I've been rattled a bit recently myself. I thought it was just writer's block.

I wouldn't be telling you about Crawford had he just appeared in the lobby of the Star wearing a wizard's hat and babbling about Mars alignment.

I did a piece on him shortly after starting this column in 2002.

His methods may appear unconventional, but he is intelligent and has a serious following.

He has a record of several decades to evaluate, and he has hit a few big calls over the years, including the crash of '87 and the September 2001 upheaval.

He is currently ranked the country's "No. 1 gold timer" by Timer Digest in Greenwich, Conn., meaning he has the best buy-and-sell record in gold among commodity timers over the past year.

Timer Digest publisher Jim Schmidt calls Crawford an "interesting fellow known for his astrology, but beneath all that he's a great technician. He understands the market very well."

Crawford is among the most bearish of prognosticators now, Schmidt says. "He is certainly in the minority, but that doesn't make him wrong."

Of course, he isn't always right, either. If Crawford never missed, he would have enough money to hire Bill Gates as an errand boy.

Fascinated by numbers since childhood, Crawford trained under a top stock technical analyst on Wall Street in the 1960s before studying the application of astrology to market patterns and setting up his own business. He runs Crawford Perspectives, a newsletter and Web site operation, from his Tucson home.

He appears on national cable TV from time to time talking about his particular take on stocks and stars.

So you have been warned. I certainly hope Crawford is wrong, and so does he.

But there is little equivocation in his voice as he relays his chilling analysis on the phone.

He notes that the current issue of Barron's has an article reflecting similar misgivings about short-term prospects by Henry Weingarten, another stock analyst who takes some guidance from astrological alignments.

Et tu, Barron's?

Opinion by

Richard Ducote