Ap Index of Geomagnetic Activity and S&P 500 Returns | Lifang Peng et al.

Existing research provides strong evidence that geomagnetic activity impacts stock investment decisions by influencing human health, mood, and behavior. Using monthly geomagnetic indices and US stock market indices from the past 20 years, we found compelling evidence supporting a causal relationship between geomagnetic activity and stock market returns.

 

High AP Index, low stock market performance—really?

Sunspot Number and Ap Index 2018 into 2032 (NASA, updated December 5, 2024).

 

The results were robust, indicating that higher geomagnetic activity, which often corresponds with intense solar activity, is inversely related to stock market performance. In other words, when geomagnetic activity was higher, the stock market tended to perform worse.

Reference:
Lifang Peng, Ning Li, Jingwen Pan (2019) - Effect of Ap Index of Geomagnetic Activity on S&P 500 Stock Market Return.

 

S&P 500 (daily candles) vs Ap Index. 

 The semiannual variation of geomagnetic activity is linked to the interaction between the solar wind and Earth's tilted magnetic field, which typically causes increased geomagnetic disturbances around the equinoxes and lower activity around the solstices.

 

 See also:
Vladimir Belkin (2024) - Strong Inverse Correlation between Ap Index and Gold Price. 

Vladimir Belkin (2024) - 2025-2027 Oil Price Decline Linked to Solar Cycle Activity. 

Bojan S. Dimitrijević et al. (2016) - Sunspots and Stock Markets: Evidence of their Interdependence in Transition Countries.

Mikhail Gorbanev (2012) - Sunspots, Unemployment, and Recessions: Can the Solar Activity Cycle shape the Business Cycle?

Robert R. Prechter and Peter Kendall (2011) - The Sunspot Cycle and Stocks.

Anna Krivelyova and Cesare Robotti (2003) - Playing the Field: Geomagnetic Storms and the Stock Market.

Lunar and Solar Eclipses 2017 | August 21 — The Great American Eclipse

2017 Feb 11 (Sat) = Penumbral Lunar Eclipse @ 24° LEO 59'
This eclipse may turn out to be of immediate importance
to Canada and the USA. The UK, Spain, Algeria, Morocco
and Mali are likely to be affected at a later date. With
the Sun being eclipse ruler, countries falling under the
Sun’s rulership will have to be taken into consideration.

2017 Feb 26 (Sun) = Annular Solar Eclipse @ 02° PIS 34'
This eclipse may be of immediate importance to Canada and
the USA. With Jupiter being eclipse ruler, countries falling
under Jupiter’s rulership will have to be taken into
consideration.

2017 Aug 07 (Mon) = Partial Lunar Eclipse @ 08° AQU 04'
This eclipse may turn out to be of immediate importance to
Poland, Austria and Italy. Russia, China and India may be
affected at a later date. With Saturn being eclipse ruler,
countries falling under Saturn’s rulership will have to
be taken into consideration.

2017 Aug 21 (Mon) = Total Solar Eclipse @ 20° LEO 21'
This is truly a great American eclipse sweeping the U.S. from
the Pacific to the Atlantic. However, this eclipse may be of
immediate importance to Russia. Canada and the USA are likely
to be affected at a later date. With the Sun being eclipse
ruler, countries falling under the Sun’s rulership will
have to be taken into consideration.
Sources: NASA. + Peter Stockinger. See also HERE + HERE

 

Asa Smith’s Illustrated Astronomy was the most popular American pictorial astronomy
guide of the 19th century, with numerous diagrams demonstrating or showing principles
of planetary motion and features, other astronomical phenomena, the moon, and the
constellations. Originally copyrighted in 1848, numerous editions followed.

DJIA vs Eclipses 2014 - 2016 (HERE)

FTSE vs Eclipses 2004 - 2013 (HERE)

More about Stock Markets vs Lunar Node's Speed and the Eclipse Crash Window HERE

The Fourth State of Matter

NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of planetary nebula NGC 2818:
red = nitrogen, green = hydrogen, and blue = oxygen (HERE)

"The whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. We have assumed that each stellar system in evolution throws off electric corpuscles into space. It does not seem unreasonable therefore to think that the greater part of the material masses in the universe is found, not in the solar systems or nebulae, but in "empty" space." | Kristian Birkeland (1913) | see also HERE 

“99.9 percent of the Universe is made up of plasma. The magnetosphere provides a barrier between our planet and particles continually given off by the Sun’s corona called the 'solar wind'. These particles constitute a plasma – a mixture of electrons (negatively charged) and ions (atoms that have lost electrons, resulting in a positive electric charge). Plasma is not a gas, liquid, or solid – it is the fourth state of matter [...] The Sun is composed of plasma, fire is plasma." | NASA 1999

Blood Moon Ends Lunar Tetrad - SuperMoon Lunar Eclipse on September 28

Credits: NASA

A rare celestial event is scheduled for September 28, 2015 - a total Lunar Eclipse and the closest SuperMoon of the year. This Full Moon is also known as the Harvest Moon, and Blood Moon, because it ends the current Lunar Tetrad - series of 4 consecutive total eclipses occurring at approximately six month intervals.

There's much talk about the Seven Year Shemitah Cycle and related stock market crashes. However, eclipses occur near the Lunar Nodes: Solar eclipses (September 13) when the passage of the Moon through a Node coincides with the New Moon, and Lunar Eclipses (September 28) when the passage coincides with the Full Moon (HERE + HERE).

Prediction of Sunspot Cycle 24-Peak & Long Term Trading Strategy

www.sidc.oma.be

SIDC: The daily (yellow), monthly (blue) and monthly smoothed (red) sunspot numbers since 1994, together with predictions for 12 months ahead: SM (red dots) : classical prediction method, based on an interpolation of Waldmeier's standard curves; CM (red dashes) : combined method (due to K. Denkmayr), a regression technique coupling a dynamo-based estimator with Waldmeier's idea of standard curves. Peak: January 2013

www.solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov

NASA: The current prediction for Sunspot Cycle 24 gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 59 in early 2013. We are currently over three years into Cycle 24. The current predicted size makes this the smallest sunspot cycle in about 100 years. Peak: January-February 2013

www.ips.gov.au

IPS: Peak: December 2012

Last updated 26 Mar 2012 13:03 UT

                         FORECAST SOLAR CYCLE 24
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cycle  Sol. Start  Sol. Max  Max SSN     Length     Rise to Max     Max to End
       Year Mth    Year Mth             Yr   Mth    Years   Mths    Years  Mths
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
24     2009 Jan    2012 Dec   90.2     11.0 132     3.9    47       7.1    86

IPS will adjust this forecast cycle as the new cycle unfolds. 
The difficulty is ensuring that adjustments are not made for short 
term variation, only for longer term cycle variation. 

www.swpc.noaa.gov

NOAA: Given the predicted date of solar minimum and the predicted maximum intensity, solar maximum is now expected to occur in May 2013.

Here is the data supporting the shorter term strategy of buying at solar minimums and selling at the next cycle maximum for an average 70% gain:

Why might stocks consistently outperform in these periods from solar minimum to maximum, and underperform from solar peak down to the next solar minimum, particularly as higher solar activity can cause higher geomagnetism on Earth which affects humans biologically negatively and adversely affects stock market returns?

Well, there is a slight lag in geomagnetic peaks after solar cycle peaks, as shown below, and this fits well with why we have seen an economic recession follow each solar cycle maximum in the last century - it corresponds to the peak in geomagnetism. Historically, this post-solar-peak period has been one of human apathy and peace. Conversely, the period into the solar peak has been one of human excitability, pro-action and economic inflation, which fits well with stock market gains.

Source: Susan Macmillan, British Geological Survey

Solar Cycle 24 began around December 2008 with a solar minimum and it is predicted to peak in July 2013. An average gain of 70% for the Dow over this period would translate as 14500 by mid 2013 (which would mean a new nominal all time high).A recession has closely followed solar peaks for each solar cycle in the last 100 years. The average recession duration is 1 year. The average length of recession-induced stocks bear markets is 1 year 4 months. As the stock market is forward looking, and a leading indicator, we could therefore find the the stock market peaks around the beginning of 2013 and then declines into the solar peak in mid 2013, and then declines through a recession into 2014.

Dow-Commodities ratios and consumer price inflation should peak at extremes at the solar peak (as has occurred each time in the last century), suggesting commodities should push on all the way into mid-2013 whilst stocks lag in the last few months.  

In summary, there is a correlation between stock market performance and solar cycles. A profitable strategy over the last century would have been to buy at the solar minimum and sell at the next solar maximum, and repeat for an average 70% gain in each instance.

An even more profitable strategy would have been to buy and hold over 2-3 decades in between 3 specific half solar cycles. This strategy would have produced 10-fold gains each time, and pattern continuation suggests such a repetition from the solar minimum at the end of 2008 looking out to the 2030s, in line with a further secular stocks bull.

Looking shorter term to the solar peak around mid-2013, stocks should track yet higher, and this implies commodities much higher, as an extreme relative pricing of commodities over stocks should be reached around that solar peak, before a secular inversion.

John Hampson, April 2011 @ www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article27341.html