Mercury is the smallest of the planets in our cosmos and is the closest of all the planets to the Sun. Because of the strong gravitational pull from the Sun, Mercury whizzes around the Sun every 88 days (at least that is what you would see if you were standing on the Sun watching all the planets in motion). From our vantage point here on Earth, because we are also in motion around the Sun, we see Mercury pass through all 12 signs of the zodiac in 116 days.
Mercury is visible in the night sky and archeologists have discovered clay tablets from 2000 BC that indicate the ancient peoples were aware of Mercury. In fact, the ancients called it Nabu.
The ancient Greeks associated Mercury with the god Hermes, who was thought to carry the Sun across the sky in his chariot. To understand why they might have thought this, take a look at the position of Mercury relative to Sun in the zodiac wheel. The two are never all that far apart. To say that Mercury is carrying Sun is not too much of a stretch of the imagination.
Later versions of Greeks society called the planet Apollo when it was visible in the morning sky, and then Hermes when it was visible in the evening sky. The Romans later on named the planet after the Roman messenger god Mercury.
To an observer on the Sun looking out into space, there will be several times each year when planet Earth and planet Mercury are seen to align. That is, they are conjunct. This conjunction only lasts for a couple days. These conjunct events are called Inferior Conjunctions.
To an observer on Earth, there are several times each year when Mercury “passes” Earth. This makes sense. It takes Earth 365 days to travel one time around the Sun and Mercury takes 88 days. Owing to this speed difference, it will appear for a short time that Mercury has moved backwards relative to a fixed reference point like a constellation. Of course the planet has not physically moved backwards - this is an optical illusion. But to the ancient peoples, Mercury seen moving backwards was a significant event that influenced politics and social events. Today, we call these Mercury events “retrograde events”.
Retrograde and Interior Conjunction are connected. An Inferior Conjunction event always will occur within the timeframe of a retrograde event.
Mercury spins on its axis, just like Earth spins one time on its axis every 24 hours. Except Mercury takes 59 days to spin one time around. This was proven to be the case by NASA scientists in the 1960s.
Somehow, the human animal is hard wired emotionally to planet Mercury. As a proxy for this idea, we need look no further than the financial markets. In the 1930s, German-American astrologer Georg Bayer wrote down his trading rules. Rule #22 states that Mercury Inferior Conjunction events will very often be associated with changes of price trend.
Bayer made his living trading Wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade. So, let’s take a look at Mercury events relative to Wheat:
The above chart of Wheat starts in early 2022 when human emotion was running ‘hot’ because of the events in Ukraine. Wheat prices were being bid up on fears that Ukraine wheat exports would not make it out of the country onto world markets. Look carefully at this chart and notice the vertical dashed lines. These represent the 59 day intervals of Mercury’s spin rotation about its axis. There is an alignment to trend changes - albeit some of these trend change events are small in size. An hourly or 30 minute chart would allow a person to better take advantage of these events.
The red vertical bars are the Inferior Conjunction events. Once again, there is an alignment to trend changes. Behind these red lines are faded purple rectangles representing the Mercury retrograde events. These wider timeframes certainly do align to trend changes. So….Bayer in the 1930s was alert enough to figure this out and he used it to his advantage.
The above chart segment brings us to the current time. Along the way, notice again how the 59 day spin intervals and the Inferior Conjunctions can be used as a valuable tool to make trading decisions. As noted earlier, a 30 minute or an hourly chart might be of assistance to get a close up view of price action.
On April 1, Mercury will turn retrograde. Several days later, the Inferior Conjunction will arrive. As the Conjunction event finishes up, a Mercury 59 day interval will land.
Watch Wheat price action carefully. The next couple weeks will be very interesting.
Now, let’s take a look at some other financial instruments…
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