As I describe in the 2026 Almanac, Scafetta’s Torque Index simply is the absolute value of the sum total of the cosine of the angle between various pairs of planets. Recall from high school math class that the cosine of 180 degrees -1. The absolute value of this is 1. The cosine of 120 degrees is -0.5. The absolute value is 0.5.

As we have just witnessed, the equity markets have literally exploded upwards in the past several days in a fit of emotion. Scafetta’s Torque Index can explain this.

The evening of July 28, 2026 set in motion a major change in human emotion. Jupiter was 120 degrees to Venus, Venus was 120 degrees to Saturn, Saturn was 120 degrees to Jupiter (astrology adherents call this a Grand Trine), and Earth was 180 degrees to Jupiter. The Torque Index summed to 2.5 which is an elevated value for this Index.

Small wonder then that Ken Griffin at Citadel Capital would make the emotional decision to step in front of a moving freight train and buy out the failing hedge fund – Situational Awareness.

No surprise then that all hell broke loose in the Gulf Region. In an emotional outburst, the IRGC fired missiles at a U.S. base in Jordan. Then they fired a barrage of drones at Port Said in Egypt.

No surprise that Saudi Arabia in turn made the emotional decision to shift from sitting by idly to becoming engaged when they blasted an Iranian-aligned militia position in Iraq.

Meanwhile in Washington, President Trump and his team at the Pentagon had just put the finishing touches on what was going to be a massive (emotional) assault on Iranian targets.Then, in a sudden emotional flip, Washington announced that it was holding off on the massive planned attack.

Meanwhile on Wall Street, emotion turned exuberant and the S&P downtrend came to an end as share prices surged higher led by panicked short sellers looking to cover their asses.

The other emotional thing that happened at the same time was a joint Japanese-U.S. intervention to the tune of $80 billion to prop up the flagging Yen which was at 40 year lows.

This follows a similar $73 billion intervention back in May.

This earlier intervention in May failed to keep the Yen out of the crapper. The question is – will this most recent intervention succeed?

On the following chart, I have projected Bayer’s Rule #10-A from the recent intervention lows. Notice how this intervention came at the midpoint of the 88-day cycle that underpins the Yen. The Bayer’s projection takes me to early September and curiously enough – the end of this 88-day cycle.

Moreover, in early September the heliocentric zodiac will look like the following:

Mercury, Mars, and Venus will form a grand trine pattern. Jupiter and Saturn will be 120 degrees apart. Mercury and Saturn will be 180-degrees opposite.

The Scafetta Torque Index computes to 3.0 – an elevated level. Emotions could spill over – and likely will.

So, in terms of possible outcomes, early September will either see:

1. The Yen peaking and starting to weaken again towards the 160 level

2. The Yen having already weakened and threatening to get over the 160+ level again

3. The Takaichi government introducing a significant policy shift of some sort to seriously prop up the Yen once and for all

This Torque Index at an elevated level also will have implications for the broader markets. Will we see an emotional outburst that sends the major indices higher? Will we see an ugly turn of events with the Iranian situation? Will we see the major indices making nasty lows?

Watch the trend. Watch the direction of travel. And remember, the financial markets are a proxy for human emotion. Our emotion is driven by planetary events that disturb the Sun’s outer plasma layers and generate outbursts of cosmic radiation. The human creature is very much attuned to the cosmos. We just don’t take the time to appreciate it…. and Wall Street certainly does not want you to know about it.

Ken Griffin’s (Citadel Securities) sudden move to buy out the failing/margin called positions at hedge fund Situational Awareness took the markets by shock.

I was watching the S&P 500 trend lower as institutional money rotated away from the AI theme. I even used Fibonacci math and arrived at some possible S&P 500 targets. What I was looking at was a Bayer’s Rule #11-A projection from the June 2 S&P high. This projection pointed to July 31-August 1. A few days after this projected date I saw the 243-day and 88-day dominant cycles ending. Moreover, I was looking at the natal historical Mercury heliocentric latitude at +/- 1.5 degrees that was due on August 7.

I parsed all this data through my mind and concluded that we were headed for an S&P interim low around 7100-7200.

So, how then did human emotion suddenly pivot from negative to wildly optimistic?

The answer has to do with something I wrote about in my 2026 Almanac. That something was the Torque Index...

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The big question now is - where is the floor of support for the stock? When can we expect this floor to be tested? To explore these questions, we can turn to some Fibonacci math and then to some planetary movements. I will reserve the actual mathematical calculations for paid subscribers. But the math is saying that a price in the $90s is on the radar screen.

If this seems like an impossibility, don’t forget that this week will see Q2 earnings released and then something like 900 million shares (currently in lock-up) become available to be sold on the market.

Now, let’s dig deeper into the math and the planetary movements.

To receive new posts similar to this one on a frequent basis that free viewers do not completely see, consider becoming a paid subscriber. The monthly cost of subscribing is $10 Canadian per month (that’s $7 US per month). You can’t even get lunch these days for $7. A small price to pay for some planetary knowledge that few other traders and investors have….

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Add to this investor concerns over AI spending.

Q2 earnings released yesterday summed it up. META missed its earnings target by a country mile. Investors were not happy. Shares are down hard as of here and now as I type these comments.

This chart of META clearly shows a series of lower highs since mid-2025. Not the kind of stock one wants to make a buy and hold investment in.

At the right side of this chart I used some Fibonacci math and was pleased to see the Fibonacci math aligning to the March-April run and the June-July recent rally.

Using these same techniques, I have calculated (back of the envelope) that a possible price target for META is $535. That is where price is at right now. Today’s violent selloff could be a low for META as investors step in to give the Company another chance to redeem itself. If today’s price levels do not hold, the dashed blue line points to a possible price target which would match the April 2025 lows.

Using Bayer’s Rules, I notice that tomorrow (July 31) marks a key date for a Rule 10-A projection from the June 25 swing low. This says there is a strong possibility that META is bottoming right now. If today is not the bottom, then the blue dashed line comes into focus with a date of August 17 or perhaps August 28.

Even if META does make a low today, the issue of the lower highs since mid-2025 still lingers like a skunk at a garden party. For less risk tolerant players, there are better places to put money to work right now.

Be sure to visit me at www.investingsuccess.ca

Recall that I issued a warning that early June would be a turning point in human emotion because heliocentric Mercury and Venus were both at their latitude maxima. I took some heat for this call, but in the end I was right. The human creature is very much linked to planetary movements in the cosmos.

The cycles that underpin the S&P 500 are linked to planetary movements. Periodogram calculations tell me that the S&P follows three cycles: 243-days, 225-days, and 88-days. These cycles are linked to Venus spinning on its axis once in 243 days. Venus takes 225 days to orbit the Sun. Mercury takes 88 days to orbit the Sun.

The work of 1930s trader Georg Bayer and his various Rules gives us further insight. On the following chart I have projected a red line from the June 25 price pivot point and another red line from the July 15 pivot point. I have projected green lines from pivot points at June 2 and June 25.

Now, let’s put this all together. One of the green lines (Bayer’s Rule 11-A) and one of the red lines (Rule 10-A) point to the time period August 4-5. The chart shows that this same August time period will see the 88-day cycle and the 243-day cycle end and start anew.

So keep your focus on next week (August 4-5). Anything can happen. The situation with Iran could wildly spin out of control. Then again, it might calm down as serious efforts at a withdrawal are started.

Keep calm. Stay focused. We are not out of the woods just yet. The month of August could be volatile. Heliocentric 2nd harmonic Mercury and Mars projections from the June 2 highs point to August 3-6, and August 18-19.

Knowing these time frames will help you tune out the noise and see more clearly when you are watching the market.

In my July 20th newsletter (The Bull, Bear & Planets Report), I included a writeup on Micron Technology (N:MU).

I focused on the June 25 high and noted that at that date heliocentric Mercury was at 241 degrees. From this date, if one takes a 2nd harmonic of this degree amount (120.5), the date of July 31 comes into focus.

I next applied Bayer’s Rule 10-A using June 25 as a start point. Rule 10-A (which uses heliocentric Mars) points to August 4-5 as a key date.

I next looked at heliocentric latitude. When MU first went public in June 1984, Mercury was very near its latitude minimum. W.D. Gann was a proponent of looking at time when natal first trade latitude events repeated. Here and now this week, Mercury is again at its latitude minimum. If one looks back in time at all of these cyclical Mercury latitudes, it becomes apparent that there is a correlation to price pivot points and these latitude events.

So that takes care of the time factor. Now for the bigger question - how much more will MU share price decline as we head into this time window?

For this we turn to Fibonacci math.

I am sorry - but I have to insert a paywall here. The Fibonacci math that I am about to describe is not the stuff typically touted in trading textbooks. I came upon this stuff in an old manuscript written by a commodity trader some 35 years ago.

To become a paid subscriber, the monthly fee is dirt cheap. A Big Mac and fries will cost you more…

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Fibonacci ratios are calculated based on the formula: 1/(sq root 1.618)^n. In this expression, ^n denotes “raised to the power”.

For example, the square root of 1.618 is 1.27200. Dropping this into the formula and letting n equal 4 gives us 1/(1.27200)^4 = 0.382. Or, in other words, the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement.

Repeating this exercise using n=1, 2, and 3 will give you three more Fibonacci ratios.

Here and now, if one looks at the price run-up in Gold from October 2022 to late January 2026 and applies the Fibonacci ratios, one sees that Gold has retraced 38.2% of this run-up.

The good news in all of this - retracements of 38.2% mean that the prevailing trend is still intact!

Normally Gold prices function according to the “real yield”. For example, the yield on 2-Year Treasury Notes is 4.67%. Subtract the rate of inflation of 3.5% and the real yield is +1.17%.

Normally a positive real yield would be a bad thing for Gold prices. However, these are not normal times we live in. Central Banks around the world have been quietly accumulating physical Gold. The geopolitical situation with Russia/Ukraine and now U.S/Iran is not good. This all explains the move higher in Gold from 2022 to 2026. Gold hitting $5400 in early 2026 was obviously a situation gone too far. Gold had gotten ahead of itself and over the end of its skis. A retracement was overdue. The fact that price has only retraced 38.2% is actually a good thing.

If you are looking for a good read on the subject of Gold, take a look at a 2009 classic: Goldbug by author James Dines. I picked up a signed copy from Mr. Dines years ago at a conference in New York when I was running with the mineral exploration crowd. Mr. Dines passed away in 2022 at the age of 91 years.

After reading this book, you will likely make haste to add some gold mining shares to your portfolio as protection against the financial shitstorm that is building on the horizon.

Let’s now dig deeper into Gold price using planetary cycles and other techniques such as Bayer’s Rules, the Square of Nine, and also squaring of price with time…

Gold functions on a longer 243-day cycle (the Venus orbital period around the Sun). There is a shorter cycle of 58.65-days as well (Mercury axial spin time).

The above chart shows that indeed Gold price has been in a bearish downtrend for several months now.

From the late January high, if one applies Gann’s Square of Nine technique, there should have been a price support level at $3936. It turns out that the intra-day low on July 1, 2026 was $3955.

From that same January high, if one makes Venus degree projections into the futures, the date of June 28 lands at one of these intervals. Mercury degree advances shows July 3 to be a key date.

This is a squaring of price and time.

From the price pivot point on June 16-17, a Bayer’s Rule 10-A projection points to yesterday and today (July 22-23). Yesterday Gold was up sharply. Today, down sharply. A Mars projection from late January points to July 30.

A Rule 11-A projection points to August 14 which is just after the end of the current 88-day cycle.

Keep these dates in mind. Also watch the simple 50-day moving average. If Gold can get above and stay above this average, we can look for a significant move higher.

This is the time to start looking at gold mining stocks. My suggestion is to stick with those that are producing. Avoid the ones that are just telling stories about how big their mine will be if they ever have one….

Cheers!

Yields are now over 4.5% and nudging higher. This is a knock-on effect of the conflict with Iran that in itself will not go away cleanly and is now in danger of speading to Yemen.

These rising yields are also signalling that issues like a $1.15 Trillion defense spending budget for fiscal 2027 are not being well received by financial institutions.

I suggested that the situation in Japan could have a further impact on U.S. yields. The Japanese Yen is a sick currency. Right now, if a U.S. tourist went to Japan, a mere 61 American pennies would buy 1 Japanese Yen. The Japanese government would like to intervene to prop up the currency. The money to orchstrate such an intervention would come from selling some more of Japan’s U.S. government debt holdings. This would place further downward pressure on instruments like the 10-Year Notes which in turn would pressure yields higher. Not exactly what Treasury secretary Scott Bessant wants right now.

Let’s take a more in-depth look at the Yen. It moves in price cycles as determined by application of the Periodogram algorithm. Other planetary techniques can then be applied to the chart to determine coming price inflection points.

The Japanese Yen moves in accordance with a pair of offsetting 225-day cycles. There is also an 88-day cycle at work as well.

Look at the above chart closely and you will note that there are small price pivots/responses at the endpoints of the 225-day cycles. The price responses to end points of the 88-day cycles are slightly more pronounced. Through it all, the Yen just keeps grinding lower.

W.D. Gann was a proponent of identifying the heliocentric latitude of Mercury and Venus at the IPO date/first trade date of a stock or commodity. He felt that these natal latitude levels should be watched into the future.

The above chart has been fitted with plots of Mercury latitude and Venus latitude.

**Note - if you take the midpoint/equator of the Sun and project it into space in all directions, you will have created what mathematicians call a plane. Astronomers call this the ecliptic plane. As Mercury and Venus orbit the Sun, they do so in their own unique planes of motion. The separation of these planets (and their planes) from the ecliptic plane is reflected in the latitude plots on the above chart.**

Japanese Yen futures started trading May 16, 1972. On that day, Mercury was at 6.5 degrees (nearly its latitude maximum), Venus was at 2.18 degrees latitude. Following Gann’s thinking, one should be watching events of Mercury passing through 6.5 degrees and minus 6.5 degrees latitude. Likewise, one should watch Venus passing +/- 2.18 degrees latitude.

Here and now, Mercury is passing through -6.50 degrees latitude. This is a critical time for the Yen. If there is to be an intervention (in collaboration with the U.S. Treasury Dept) it could come any day.

Late August will see Venus passing -2.18 degrees latitude and Mercury passing +6.50 degrees latitude. This will be the next window of possible intervention. A projection of Venus (time by planetary degrees) from the May 6 pivot point suggests that August 24 could be a key date to focus on.

This is why it is important to focus on planetary movements. The time intervals that can be determined are valuable data points that other traders and investors do not have.

Cheers!

The bond market is speaking right now and people ought to pay attention.

At the start of 2026, the yield to maturity on U.S. 10 Year Treasury Notes was a comfortable 4%. In my writing, I started reminding people that we were heading into the final innings (or for cricket fans - the final overs) of the 18.6 year cycle. I cautioned that 2026 was going to see some economic turmoil. I felt somewhat uneasy making this wild prediction, but after reading Phil Anderson’s book - The Secret Life of Bankers, I realized I had history on my side.

And then came February 28 and the start of a nasty attack in Iran. I was in southern Portugal at the time and for several days in a row I sat on the deck of my AirBnB watching F2 bombers heading east towards Iran. A couple hours later, these same planes could be seen heading west towards a mid-air refueling rendezvous and ultimately home base in the U.S. A look at the television showed the net result of these daily bombing missions. The whole thing was surreal…

I wrote in my newsletters that history was repeating itself. This war would ultimately steer the global economy into the grip of the final part of the 18.6 year cycle. What I did not see coming was how the stock market chose to largely ignore the Iran situation and focus instead on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) theme.

Fast forward to here and now and many of these AI stocks have had a tremendous run up, but have now given back a big chunk of their gains. Money has moved away from AI and into previously under-appreciated sectors of the market. Net result - the S&P and Nasdaq indices have suffered only minor damage. Call this the Great Rotation trade if you are looking for a name.

But as I noted at the start of this post, the bond market is where the smart money likes to focus. The yield to maturity on the U.S. 10 Year Notes is no longer 4%. It is 4.7% and threatening to go higher. If we go back to January 2025, the yield at that point briefly touched 4.78%. I dare say this level is going to be tested sooner than later. Could it move even higher after retesting 4.78%? Sure it could.

Why should you care?

Bankers typically lean on the 10 Year yield to price mortgages and other lending instruments. This means a real estate market that will be further weakened as consumers push back decisions to buy houses. This means thousands of existing mortgage holders who will be shocked when their mortgages come up for renewal.

Next one has to consider the government debt/deficit level. On July 22, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $1.15 Trillion (yes…that is trillion with a ‘T’) defense spending budget for fiscal 2027. To make the budget numbers work, various social programs and government spending programs will be cut back. No wonder the 10-Year yields are edging higher. Spending like this comes at a higher price. International financial institutions will be seeking a higher return on money lent to the U.S.

The situation with Iran looks to be in danger of spreading. The administration in Washington has now warned the Houthi rebels in Yemen to behave - or else! Tankers loading at the Saudi port of Yanbu that are destined for S.E. Asia are not going to risk sailing through a Houthi dominated chokepoint. These vessels will now have to sail north and through the Suez Canal. Then, they will have to sail out of the Mediterranian into the Atlantic Ocean, down around the tip of Africa and on to their destinations. Small wonder the price of Brent Crude is pressing against $100/barrel this morning.

So how do the planets fit into this? Let’s take a deeper dive…

An analysis of the 10 Year Treasury Note futures shows that price follows three cycles: a 58.65-day cycle, an 88-day cycle, and a 225-day cycle. If these time intervals could familiar they should- 58.65 days is Mercury’s axial spin time, 88-days is Mercury’s orbital period around the Sun, and 225-days is Venus’s orbital period around the Sun.

Planetary Trader is designed to raise investor awareness of how planetary movements in our cosmos affect our emotions and thereby the financial markets. Please feel welcome to share this post with friends and co-workers who might be interested in learning more about how events in our cosmos affect the markets. The monthly cost of subscribing is $10 Canadian per month (that’s $7 US per month). You can’t even get lunch these days for $7. A small monthly price to pay for some planetary knowledge that few other traders and investors have….

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We hear about Rare Earth (REE) metals on a regular basis now.

· China controls the bulk of REE production.

· The administration in Washington has taken steps to start building a stockpile of critical minerals to counter the China threat.

One metal we hear little about is element #21 on the Periodic Table - Scandium.

It is typically found in small quantity in most REE deposits. It is also often found in ore bodies containing Niobium and Titanium. So it is not “rare” per se, it just occurs in small amounts mixed in with other minerals.

Why will we be hearing more?, you ask.

Adding scandium to aluminum creates lightweight, high-strength, and highly corrosion-resistant alloys. This is critical for aerospace manufacturing, where structural weight savings drastically reduce fuel consumption. And let’s face it - expect to hear more - lot’s more - about space investments going forward. Wall Street is going to judge space investments based on the cost to lift 1 kg of cargo into orbit. Reduce your cost by using light-weight metals in your rocket and your share price will move higher.

Scandium-stabilized zirconia alloys significantly increase the electro-conductivity of solid oxide fuel cells, making them highly efficient. Think Bloom Energy (N:BE) and its solid oxide fuel cells that are capable of powering everything from small towns to massive data centers.

High-strength aluminum alloys with Scandium will allow for significant electric vehicle weight reductions. Lighter vehicles will have a longer driving range. Consumers tend to judge EV’s based on their driving range. Even traditional gas-powered vehicles will benefit from these alloys. Lighter vehicles burn less fuel. The net pounds of aluminum per light duty vehicle is forecast to increase from 459 lbs. in 2020 to 570 lbs by 2030.

So, where does Scandium come from?

In that post, I went on to describe an Australian company pursuing a Scandium project.

In this post, I want to introduce you to a U.S. company advancing a Scandium project in Nebraska. To be fair, the project is really a Niobium (element # 41 on the Periodoc Table) project, but there is a substantial amount of Scandium mineralization in the carbonatite ore body buried beneath 640 acres of corn field in Nebraska.

This project has been known about for years now and it dates back to the days when Molycorp was leading the charge in the U.S. rare earth mining sector. If you are aware of the Mountain Pass, California rare earth mining project - that was a Molycorp discovery in the late 1940s. In my days of mineral exploiration in the U.S. southwest, I often came across areas where Molycorp had drilled back in the day.

Molycorp is no longer around and for that the globalization movement is to blame. Why tear up your own ground and irritate environmental groups when you can source your critical minerals from other countries?

This works until it no longer works. China was the main vendor of these critical minerals. That is, until China put on its big-boy pants and decided to pursue world domination.

Enter - Donald J. Trump.

You can say what you want about the man. You can criticize his unorthodox approach to politics all day long. But - the man had the foresight to realize America needed to develop its own inventory of critical and rare minerals. And that brings us to here and now…

The Nebraska project is marching ahead with determination. The Balance Sheet shows the Company to be good and well “cashed up”. Efforts are underway right now to build the access adit (downsloping entry tunnel) to the project ore mining area. Feasibility studies show a life of mine of near 38 years. There is a prolific amount of Niobium and Titanium in the ore body. More importantly, there is 14,000 tonnes of indicated and inferred Scandium in the ore body. At just under $3700 per kilogram, the Scandium content of this ore body screams one message - “this project is a money maker!”

The Company behind this project is NioCorp Developments (N:NB) and its management team has roots going back to the Molycorp days.

The next step in this whole project is to secure loans to fund the remainder of the project’s capex (estimated at just over $1 billion). The US Ex-Im Bank is currently reviewing NB’s application for a debt package. U.K. and German lending sources are also part of the overall discussion.

But I digress. Let’s get back on track with some planetary stuff…

Niocorp (N:NB) started trading in New York on March 21, 2023. At the time, Venus was at 0.42 degrees latitude, Mercury was at -3.30 degrees latitude.

Periodogram analysis shows that NB follows a 243-day cycle (Venus axial spin time) and a 58.65-day cycle (Mercury axial spin time).

Analysis also shows that events when heliocentric Mercury and Venus pass their March 2023 latitude levels, there is a price response.

The next Mercury latitude event will occur in early August just after the 58.65-day cycle ends and right around the time of the 243-day cycle midpoint.

The next Venus latitude event will more closely overlap with the end of the 58.65-day cycle and the 243-day cycle midpoint.

In October 2025, NB made a significant high at just over $12 per share. Using this as a start point, if I project heliocentric intervals of Mercury forward, Aug 3 looks to be a key date. If I project intervals of Mars forward, Aug 10 looks to be a critical date.

From the Nov 26, 2024 lows, if I calculate Square of Nine intervals, I see that $4.58, $5.71, and $6.97 price levels all come into sight.

Add this stock to your radar screen. I thinking that it is about to make a pronounced move to the upside.

Oh - and by the way there are Options that trade against the stock. Now, that grabs my attention!

Planetary Trader is designed to raise investor awareness of how planetary movements in our cosmos affect our emotions and thereby the financial markets. This particular post is free for all to read.

To receive new posts similar to this one on a frequent basis that free viewers do not see, consider becoming a paid subscriber. The monthly cost of subscribing is $10 Canadian per month (that’s $7 US per month). You can’t even get lunch these days for $7. A small price to pay for some planetary knowledge that few other traders and investors have….

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Today – July 14 - the shit got very real for IBM. The planets spoke mightily. IBM shares plunged the most ever in one day in the history of the Company.

So what happened?

IBM released preliminary second-quarter results a week ahead of schedule. Their numbers showed Q…

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Let’s look at this another way…

April 9, 2025 marked a swing low on the S&P 500. This was the tariff panic event.

At that date, Mercury was at 231 degrees and Venus at 210 degrees.

Consider this bit of math:

231 + 58(90) = 5451.

210 + 59 (90) = 5520.

The S&P 500 closed that day at 5520.

This is the concept of interchangeability between price and time that W.D. Gann hinted about. The “90” in these equations denotes 1/4 of a circle.

From Apr 9, 2015 one can mark on a price chart 52.5 degree advances of Venus (this is the 4th harmonic of 210 degrees). Using a start level of 5000 (the bottom of the 3 price candles around this April 9 low), one can apply the Gann Square of Nine repeatedly and denote the various price levels on the chart.

The chart looks like this:

Note how the Square of Nine tells us that the S&P is at a critical level here and now (dashed line). The vertical blue lines denote the Venus intervals. The chart actually says July 11 is the key date but that is today - a Sunday. So watch what the S&P does on Monday July 13. (August 13 is the next key date..)

As of here and now, the Strait of Hormuz is again shut. Missiles are flying back and forth in the Gulf Region. The Houthi rebels in Yemen are threatening the Bab el Mandab Strait which would mean a “choke” on oil tankers moving up the Red Sea to the Suez Canal.

It is a shit show any way you look at it.

Either the S&P is going to shrug it all off and press higher…or it is going to start retreating. Both Bayer’s Rule 10-A and some Gann math are pointing to here and now as a key date to watch.

I think now we know why this date arose from the calculations.

Step back for a minute and think this through… Is it possible that the wars, conflicts, invasions, dramas, and other things that happen with humanity are all pre-programmed? Are the planets telling us in advance what dates to be alert to?

Gann certainly thought so. Bayer thought so. What do you think?

What follows in the remainder of this post is a look at Oil and Gold using these same mathematical techniques.

Planetary Trader is designed to raise investor awareness of how planetary movements in our cosmos affect our emotions and thereby the financial markets. This particular post is for paid subscribers only. If you are one of my paid subscribers - thank you for your continued support. I really appreciate it. Please feel welcome to share this post with friends and co-workers who might be interested in learning more about how events in our cosmos affect the markets. The monthly cost of subscribing is $10 Canadian per month (that’s $7 US per month). You can’t even get lunch these days for $7. A small price to pay for some planetary knowledge that few other traders and investors have….

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In his later years he penned his Rules. His Rule 10-A says to identify a significant swing pivot point on a daily price chart. Find out the heliocentric position of Mars at that date. Do some simple math to calculate a future position of Mars. Next, figure out when Mars would be crossing that degree point.

The best way to further describe this is by way of a price chart. Let’s look at the S&P 500 front month futures (currently Sept).

Focus on the red, horizontal lines. This is Bayer’s Rule 10-A in action. Note that these lines all start from pivot swing points. One of these lines projected to June 22. The S&P hit resistance on that date and proceeded to fall. Another of these lines projected to June 27 - exactly when the S&P 500 started its current move higher.

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Corn is somethng that not everyone cares about or understands.

Let’s now look at an example of something we can all relate to.

On August 23, 1921 the Dow Jones Average marked a significant low of $64. Over the next years, the Dow embarked on a bullish ride that did not stop until the wheels fell off the wagon on September 3, 1929.

During this bullish excursion, heliocentric Saturn moved 92 degrees. The Dow Jones advanced by 317 points.

W.D. Gann was a keen follower of the big outer planets - Saturn and Jupiter. If Mr. Gann were here right now, he would tell you that late August 1921 was an obvious choice for the start of a market rally. Why? Because heliocentric Saturn and Jupiter were conjunct (0 degrees apart) at the time.

Gann was also of the philosophy that price and time were interchangeble. Degrees…points…they are just numbers. He was also a keen user of square roots of numbers.

Consider the following bit of math: 92 x sq root of 2 = 130.

Now, 130 + 90 + 90 = 310.

The Dow Jones closed at 317 points on September 3, 1929. The figure of 310 is very close to a match with 317 onsidering that the daily trading range of the Dow in those days was at least 6 points. From all of this, Gann would have said that the Dow had “squared” price and time with resepct to Saturn.

Gann would likely have checked his prognosis using Square of Nine math. Starting from the 1921 low of 63.90 and performing a series of Square of Nine computations would have taken him to 380.25. That is pretty darned close to the Sept 3, 1929 close of 381.20.

While others continued to pour money into the overheated market, Mr. Gann would have retreated to the sidelines to sidestep the carnage that was about to manifest.

Planetary Trader is designed to raise investor awareness of how planetary movements in our cosmos affect our emotions and thereby the financial markets. This particular post is free for all to read. To receive new posts similar to this one on a frequent basis that free viewers do not see, consider becoming a paid subscriber. The monthly cost of subscribing is $10 Canadian per month (that’s $7 US per month). You can’t even get lunch these days for $7. A small price to pay for some planetary knowledge that few other traders and investors have….

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On August 27, 2024 Corn made a low at $3.67/bushel. After that, price ralled into February 2025 and then failed again. Price rallied into May 2026 and has been failing since. Price tested the $4.00/bushel mark basis the July futures this morning.

From the April 2022 high to the August 11, 2025 low, heliocentric Jupiter moved 108 degrees. Now, stretch your mind and think like W.D. Gann. He said that price and time and critical to trading. He further suggested the two are interchangable. He was also a keen proponent of square root math.

Try this bit of math on for size: 108 x sq root of 2 = 152.7.

$827 - 152.7-152.7-152.7 = $368.9. Corn posted an intra-day low at $3.68 on August 11, 2025. W.D. Gann would have said Corn “squared” with Jupiter on that date.

On September 2-3, 2025 Corn price gapped high. Since then, the gap has gone un-tested. Until now that is… Today, the gap has been filled.

The question how is - is this a Gann “squaring” moment? Has Corn bottomed?

From the April 2022 high until now, Saturn has moved 49 degrees.

Try this math on for size: 49 x sq root of 5 = 109.56. Now, 827 - 4(109.56) = $3.89/bushel.

In the next couple days, if Corn (July) tests $3.89 and holds, then W.D. Gann would say Corn has squared price with time by way of Saturn.

As a test of this math, the Square of Nine when applied to the 2022 high, suggests that $3.90 will be a critical support level.

This is the kind of stuff I share with subscribers to my bi-weekly newsletter (The Bull,Bear & Planets Report). Visit me at www.investingsuccess.ca.

Planetary Trader is designed to raise investor awareness of how planetary movements in our cosmos affect our emotions and thereby the financial markets. This particular post is free for all to read. To receive new posts similar to this one on a frequent basis that free viewers do not see, consider becoming a paid subscriber. The monthly cost of subscribing is $10 Canadian per month (that’s $7 US per month). You can’t even get lunch these days for $7. A small price to pay for some planetary knowledge that few other traders and investors have….

Not exactly what the markets wanted to hear. The S&P 500 was looking decent ahead of the Fed decision. Once the decision was iterated, the S&P 500 threw a hissy fit and fell out of bed.

The question I have been getting lately is - have we seen a TOP in the…

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Dense. Hard. Abrasion resistant. Heat resistant.

And…America produces NONE of it.

China is the dominant world supplier (80%) and it does not like to share. Moreover, in 2027 the U.S. Govt will be throwing up restrictions on imported Tungsten from China.

Back when I was in the mineral exploration biz, I learned of a former Union Carbide project in Montana. Problem was - the project was smack in the middle of a U.S. National Forest Service piece of land. We were told by the bureaucrats in Washington that the project area would never see another shovel in the ground. Talk about short-sighted. But the Democrats were occupying the White House at the time - so no surprise to run into this blind attitude. Buy hey… I’m not bitter…

Fast forward to here and now. America needs Tungsten. It is vital for the defense industry.

Enter Don Jr. and his brother from another mother - Eric. They managed to get involved with a former construction company (Skyline Builders) and have now cleaned up the shell entity and refocused it on Tungsten. The company has wrangled a deal in Kazakhstan of all places. I have just learned that Kazahstan has prolific mineral wealth in the ground - in particular Tungsten ore. The re-structured company will be acquiring a 70% interest in a Kazakhstan Tungsten play and the US Export Import Bank will be providing trhe financing. I guess it helps if you have family connections in the White House?

The timeline to a production scenario is 3 years. Add Nasdaq:KAZR to your watchlist. Share price is bouncing around the $3.00 level. What a person could do is buy a few hundred shares now and treat them like a long-dated Call option.

Don’t bet the farm. Don’t bet your lunch money.

As the timeline to mine construction becomes more clear, the value of the shares rises. If something goes awry with the deal, the shares decline to zero. You don’t own enough that you will get hurt.

If you want something with near-term potential, consider a company that does NOT mine Tungsten, but instead imports Tungsten ore concentrate into the U.S. for further processing. This company has drawn the attention of government. It has received money from the U.S. Navy and U.S. War Dept to advance manufacturing capability of Tungsten alloys that can be used in manufacturing components for the defense effort.

The Company is ELMET GROUP which made its IPO debut a couple months ago in April. It imports Tungsten concentrate from Australia thanks to a deal with EQR Resources (EQR on Aussie market).

It is too soon to fully grasp the planetary movements on the stock. What I can see here and now is that price is following a 27-day lunar sidereal cycle (blue arcs on the chart). The IPO date conincided with heliocentric Mercury at its latitude minimum (a random coincidence you say?). Going forward, one needs to be alert to times when Mercury is at its latitude minimum and also at its latitude maximum (W.D. Gann called this a contra-parallel event).

There are no Options that trade on ELMT at the moment, so I will not be playing with the stock. Once Options become available, I will get involved.

If it is a miner that you seek, look no further than the small town of Dillon, Montana. This is the new corporate home of Almonty Industries (N: ALM, Toronto: AII). Up until recently, the Company was headquartered in Toronto, Canada. By moving to a U.S. location, the Company can better align itself with U.S. Govt moves to support critical mineral producers.

Almonty is producing Tungsten in Portugal and in South Korea. It has a project in Montana that will be developed over the coming years.

Share price reacts at times of Mercury latitude minimum and maximum. Price also follows an 88-day cycle. Price is pushing up against the 4-Moon (118 day) moving average here and now. June 30 will mark the mid-point of the current 88-day cycle. The 3rd week of July will see Mercury at its latitude minimum.

There are Options that trade on the stock. Options (July 17 expiry) suggest a 68% probability that 30 days from now the stock will be at worst $15 and at best $23.

So there you go - Tungsten and three ways to play it.

Rocket Lab was founded in New Zealand in 2006 by self-taught inventor Peter Beck. The stated goal of the Company was to provide low-cost launch services for the small-satellite market. Renamed RocketLabs, it made its IPO debut on Nasdaq on Aug 25, 2021.

Along the way, before going public, - in 2017 the Company unveiled its Electron rocket—the world’s first carbon-composite rocket design, powered by 3D-printed, electric-pump engines.

What is an electric-pump engine you ask? Traditional rocket engines bleed off a small amount of the rocket’s propellant which in turn spins high-speed turbines that draw fuel into the main combustion chamber. If you have ever seen a massive launch explosion of a rocket on the pad (ie Blue Origin’s blow out last week), that is the turbine(s) failing. Peter Beck recognized this risk at an early stage and decided to come up with a safer design.

Electric-pump engines draw electricity from massive onboard lithium battery packs to spin brushless DC electric motors. The motors spin pumps that force the fuel propellants into the combustion chamber at extreme pressures.

The electric pump engines can be finely controlled by engineers in the command center on the ground. The electric pump design is considiered less complicated and therefore cheaper to build.

Rocketlab’s Electron rocket has become a leading launch vehicle in that it has delivered over 200 satellites into orbit for government and commercial customers across 81 successful missions through March 31, 2026.

But this number pales in comparison to what Elon Musk has done. SpaceX in the same timeframe has done over 600 missions.

RocketLabs is also developing a reusable, medium-capacity Neutron rocket that will handle bigger payloads of approximately 13,000 kg. Neutron will be tailored for commercial and U.S. government launches and will of course be able to one day handle human space flight - sending crew and cargo to space stations. In other words– Space-X has a serious competitor nipping at its heels. The question is – does SpaceX even care?

In Q1 2026, RKLB had revenues of $200 million, yet recorded a net loss of ($56 million). Add to this the ($27 million) spent on materials and equipment and you had a cash burn of $85 billion. The Company was able to cash in on the space “hype” seeping through the markets in Q1 (thanks to SpaceX) and floated $450 million from equity sales.

The Company is now sitting on $1.2 billion in cash – so there is no danger of running out of money. But here is teh rub… Space might be the “next frontier” - as Star Trek called it back in the day of Captain Kirk and Dr. Spock , but how many money-losing quarters will institutional and retail shareholders tolerate from RocketLabs?

SpaceX is also burning cash on its rocket business. But it is making money on its StarLink satellite business and it is making gobs of cash on its mega – AI data center facility which it leases to Anthropic and Open AI.

Think of this all as a race between two elite athletes where the crowd gets to bet on a winner. Will the crowd bet on the stronger athlete who has run nearly 8X as many races? Or, will the bets line up behind the less-strong athlete?

Stock action on June 12 suggests the crowd is betting on SPCX – the stronger athlete. The stock IPO’d and held a price above the $135 mark that was suggested. Meantime, RKLB pulled back nearly 12% on the day.

The planets can be used as part of a trading/investing strategy.

On Aug 25, 2021 when the stock made its market debut, both heliocentric Mercury and Venus were at the 0-degree mark.

Price action of RKLB follows at 243-day cycle (axial spin time of Venus) and an 88-day cycle (orbital spin time of Mercury). In addition, the price action is closely aligned to the latitude of heliocentric Mercury.

The price peak in late May (as the equity markets were also peaking) came at the end of an 88-day cycle. Next week will see the end of the current 243-day cycle.

Mercury at its minimum, maximum and 0-degree heliocentric latitude levels closely aligns to pivot point inflections on the daily price chart. Mercury will pass 0-degrees latitude next week just as the Venus 243-day cycle completes. I think it is possible that RKLB could test the lower bound ($90 level) of the channel shown on the above chart. The 4-Moon (118 day) moving average is right around this level as well.

Here and now, RKLB has retraced Fibonacci 61.8% of its move higher in May. A 78.6% retrace will take price to the $90 level.

The June 12 SpaceX event was a helluva party. Now we have to let the hangover go away. The next week or so will tell us more about space - the final frontier.

Planetary Trader is designed to raise investor awareness of how planetary movements in our cosmos affect our emotions and thereby the financial markets. This particular post is free for all to read. To receive new posts similar to this one on a frequent basis that free viewers do not see, consider becoming a paid subscriber. The monthly cost of subscribing is $10 Canadian per month (that’s $7 US per month). A small price to pay for some planetary knowledge that few other traders and investors have….

One design of SMR is the HTGR (Hi Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor). The first gas-cooled reactor was built in 1943 at Oak Ridge, TN. It was a 3.5 MW (Megawatt) air-cooled unit (air is a “gas” after all…).

In 1951, France built a 2 MW unit that used pressurized Nitrogen as a coolant gas.

In 1959, the U.K. started designing the Dragon Reactor. This was a 20 MW unit, cooled by pressurized Helium and fueled by graphite-coated (TRISO) spherical fuel balls. This unit started operating in 1965 and continued through to 1976.

The U.S. government next got involved when it designed and built the experimental 40 MW, helium-cooled Peach Bottom HTGR unit in collaboration with the Philadelphia Electric Company. This unit operated from 1966 through 1974. One of the key observations from this project was that carbon-coated fuel particles operated with no fuel failures for 897 equivalent full power days.

Next up was the 330 MW Fort St. Vrain project located in Platteville, Colorado. It was operated by the Public Service Company of Colorado from 1976 to 1989. There were some technical issues with the helium cooling method. However, these issues were resolved and this project really set the stage for the future use of SMR’s in the U.S. Critics of nuclear are quick to seize on the helium cooling challenges of this project and these critics will have you believing that a nuclear Armageddon awaits us all if we pursue SMRs.

From a nuclear safety perspective, modern HTGRs with Tri-structural isotropic (TRISO) coated fuel particles, a graphite moderator, and helium-gas coolant are safe. In the event of an accident, TRISO fuel will not rise steeply in temperature. This means the reactor core temperature will remain below the maximum acceptable critical temperatures for over a week after an accident.

Small Modular Reactors have the potential to be about more than just power generation. SMRs pose an opportunity to help decarbonize the industrial sector which relies on burning fossil fuels to generate heat for various processes. Think about any industrial process that needs steam heat to cook or melt process materials. Now envision that same industrial plant with its own SMR generating the steam heat. No fossil fuels. No greenhouse gas emissions.

One company that is advancing a HTGR design is X-Energy (N: XE). It is building four of its XE-100 prototype units right now in Texas. Each reactor module will be capable of producing 80 MW of power. The Company will be making its TRISO fuel at its facility in Oak Ride, TN.

Up until recently, X Energy was a private concern, funded by Amazon along with some deep-pocketed investment funds. By my reckoning, the private entity had 207 million shares, the sale of which had brought in $1.8 billion from private investors. This means the private investors paid around $8.75 per share.

On April 24, 2026 X Energy made its IPO debut and floated about 49 million more shares into the market to raise gross proceeds of over $1 billion. This capital should be sufficient to see its XE-100 project through to completion.

When the private shareholders ultimately feed their shares into the public market, they stand to have a nice payday, even at current share prices.

As far as recent developments are concerned, consider:

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for the proposed XE-100 reactor design.

The XE-100 design has been submitted to UK authorities for approvals.

The Company has signed a deal with Japanese engineering firm IHI in which the companies will collaborate to assess manufacturing opportunities for critical components needed for X-energy’s reactors.

The Company has received a Special Nuclear Material License from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This approval will allow the Company to commercially manufacture fuel using high-assay low-enriched uranium (“HALEU”) under an initial 40-year license at Oak Ridge, TN.

The timeline for X Energy to commercially begin selling its reactors is still about 2-3 years away. A lot can happen in this timeframe, so no need to rush head over heels into the stock just yet. Better to take a short term mentality and aim to trade in and out.

There are a couple planetary strategies that one can use to help with a short-term trading strategy. Paid subscribers - let’s take a look…

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Well it does have some real world application - you can use it to assess the performance of a stock or a commodity futures contract.

Take a group of data points ( let’s say the previo…

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