An extremly progressive and optimistic year of gambling, improvisation, innovation and invention in which nothing seems impossible. "The game's afoot!" is the enthusiastic cry that resounds throughout the year. Politics, diplomancy, business, and finance are all engaged in high-stakes games of chance in which the players try to outsmart and outbluff each other. With all the excitement and activity, it will be hard to know who is winning. Stocks will soar in a frenzy of speculation and competition and those who are quick and alert are bound to reap huge dividends. This is not a year for the timid or slow-witted, as the shrewd and cunningly playful Trickmaster Monkey sees to it that the winners find themselves laughing all the way to the bank.

Monkeys are warm, buoyant, and spontaneous, often with radiant smiles and humorous and mischievous twinkles in their eyes. You cannot help but be delighted by their company and they are experts at making themselves likable and indispensable. They are capable of great concentration and hard work and with their superb intelligence, insightfulness, and remarkable skills they are certainly a great asset when they are on your side. Monkey's have lively personalities. They delight not only in the world around them, but also in their own cleverness and accomplishments and it is certainly difficult to begrudge them their childlike joy in themselves. They rely on skill and mental agility rather than on brute strength.

Never lie to a Monkey. Master charlatans themselves, they will see through you straight away. Oddly enough, they hold truth and objectivity in high regard. Monkeys are immensely sociable creatures, with an unshakable belief in themselves, and they will take great care to display good manners, politeness and quiet dignity in order to ingratiate themselves to those around them.

When negative, they can be extremely vain, selfish and egotistical, with to high an opinion of themselves, utterly self-absorbed and totally convinced that they are smarter and wiser than everyone else. They can be actually too smart for their own good. They do not have enough respect for others, nor do they value their conquests. Because everything appears to come to Monkeys easily and effortlessly, they can have an inflated sense of their on entitlement, take people for granted and lose interest quickly. They can also be mercenary in their outlook and behavior and are masters of revenge.

Monkeys are intellectuals with acute memories are insatiable curiosity. No problem is too great for them, and if no solution is readily apparent, they will invent one. If that doesn't work, they will simply move on. Their genius is not only inventive but practical and you won't find them wasting their time on losing propositions or in futile struggles. They are at heart realists and masters of self-preservation who will not hesitate to take the easiest way out of an unfavorable situation. When cornered or trapped, they can resort to unscrupulous means to escape.

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