SPX vs Sunspots | 36 - 48 Hour Forecast

Current Solar Data from NOAA (HERE + HERE)

The number  of sunspots in existence at any one time is continually subject to change as some disappear and new ones emerge. As the sun
rotates on its own axis, these sunspots are visible at 27-day intervals, the approximate period required for the sun to make one complete
rotation. The 27-day sunspot cycle causes variations in the ionization density of the layers on a day-to-day basis.

Spotless Sun | Solar Cycle # 24 weakest in more than a Century

Not a single sunspot since June 3rd. However, solar activity of course continues modulating geomagnetism,
 and in some two or three days sunspots should reappear from region #12,546, currently still on the sun's farside.
The current Solar Cycle # 24 is the weakest solar cycle in more than a century with the fewest sunspots since
Solar Cycle # 14 peaked in February 1906.

The Sun rotates counterclockwise, but not as a rigid sphere:
The equator rotates faster than the poles (differential rotation).

SPX vs Solar Activity

SPX vs 10.7 cm Flux | April - May 2016

The NOAA-forecasts on 10.7 cm flux are updated daily.

SPX vs Sunpots

SPX vs Sunspots

SPX vs Sunspots

The inverted Sunspots shifted +2 days oftentimes correlate with the stock market, and suggest: from a Monday low up into Tuesday.

The inverted Sunspots shifted +49 days hint to the current cycle's and the market's likely future direction.

The Planetary A Index < 10 is usually negative for the stock market; the inverted 10.7 cm Flux usually forecasts the market's direction.

SPX vs Sunspots

SPX vs Sunspots

Yesterday Sunspots Increased = Today Market Should Decline

However, the daily sunspot number reached a 2 year high (154) while the SoLunar Map signals an upturn in the stock market (see also HERE)

Highest Daily Sunspot Number since April 2014

Source: NOAA

SPX vs Sunspots

Sunspots shifted +49 days

The Ap index measures geomagnetic activity and the 10.7 cm Flux is considered a sunspot-proxy.
Source: NOAA

SPX vs Sunspots

 

Sunspots shifted +49 days

Sunspots and Stocks - The Short-Term

Everything in the universe is constantly bathing in fluctuating electro-magnetic forces and fields that affect virtually every circuit in biological systems. Human physiological rhythms and global behaviors are not only synchronized with solar and geomagnetic activity, but disruptions in these fields can also create adverse effects on human health and behavior. Changes in geomagnetic activity are correlated with altered blood pressure, heart rate, melatonin levels, and increased occurrence of cancer, balance of hormonal system, reproductive system, cardiac and neurological disease, hospital admissions and mortality, as well as depression, fatigue, mental confusion, and traffic accidents. 

'Daily Sunspot Numbers' and 'F10.7 Flux' e.g. @ NASA's OMNIWeb

An important finding is that of all the bodily systems studied thus far, changes in solar activity and consequently geomagnetic conditions most strongly affect the rhythms of the heart. Of course electromagnetic fields generated by power supply systems, telecommunications, appliances, computers and other technology are extremely powerful and have similar effects on organisms.

In the late 1990s Jeffrey Owen Katz and Donna McCormick examined the effects of sunspots especially on the S&P 500 and Minnesota Wheat. They developed several profitable trading strategies generating entries and exits based on solar activity alone. However, they concluded: "We personally do not believe solar influences directly determine the market. We do suspect that they act as triggers for events that are predisposed to occur, or as synchronizers of already-present market rhythms with similar periodicities." Well ...

Sunspots and Stocks | The Big Picture

Most people think the Sun rests at the centre of the solar system, and
that the planets orbit it. This is almost correct, but not quite (HERE).

Historically, most cultures believed that their collective behavior was influenced by the Sun and extraterrestrial cycles. Since 1755, when continuous recording of solar sunspot activity began, a lot of research has been focused on possible impacts of the solar cycle on the climate, weather, agriculture, and consequently also on the financial markets. In the larger social realm, increased violence, crime rate, upheaval, revolutions, and the frequency of military attacks and the intensity of warfare have been linked to the solar cycle and the resulting disturbances in the geomagnetic field (HERE). 

The tidal and electro-magnetic forces exerted on the Sun by the motions of the other planets – primarily by Jupiter and Saturn - are the cause for the cyclic solar activity. Outside of the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn combined contain 92% of the total planetary mass and 86% of the angular momentum. The Sun's radius is 0.0044 astronomical units, while Jupiter and Saturn can move the barycenter as much ~2.2 solar radii away from the center of the Sun. The total angular momentum in the Solar System is constant, while the angular momentum of each individual part of the system referred to the Center of Mass is variable. When Jupiter and Saturn are in conjunction with the Sun, the barycenter is far outside of the Sun. But when both of them are on opposite sides, the barycenter is inside the Sun. Jupiter's magnetosphere extends well beyond Saturn's orbit. If it were not for the presence of the solar field itself, Jupiter's magnetosphere would reach the centre of the solar system. Saturn also has a large magnetosphere, approximately about one-fifth of Jupiter's. The variation in the Sun's motion about the Center of Mass is charcterized by a periodicity of 178.770 years: Every 16 loops about the barycenter the Sun repeats a very similar path. The slight time derivative or torque to this 178.770 year cycle, a time dependant periodic function of +/- 1.05 years is called the torque cycle, determined by nine subsequent synodic periods of Jupiter and Saturn (9 * 19.858 years = 178.720 years) and used by Theodor Landscheidt to forecast sunspot cycles. 

Mikhail Gorbanev (2012): Probably, the earliest recorded hypothesis about the relation between the
solar and business activity was presented in a paper by German astronomer Wilhelm Herschel in 1801,
calling attention to an apparent relationship between sunspot activity and the price of wheat. In
1875 British economist and statistician William Stanley Jevons suggested that there was a relation-
ship between sunspots and business cycle crises. He reasoned that sunspots affect Earth's weather,
which, in turn, influences crops and, therefore, the economy. In 1934 Argentinian Carlos Garcia-
Mata and Felix I. Shaffner revisited the evidence about the links between solar activity and business
cycle in the US. They did not find support for Jevon’s theory about cyclical solar activity affecting
crops. However, they uncovered a statistically significant correlation between the fluctuations in
non-agricultural business activity in the US and the solar cycle.

Mikhail Gorbanev (2012): Solar maximums are good predictors of US recession, effectively predicting at
least 8 out of 13 recessions between 1935 and 2012. Recessions occurred in the months around and after
the solar maximums much more often than in other periods. Out of 13 recessions in this period, 8 started
in the 2 years around solar maximums, counting from 3 months before until 20 months after them. What
about the remaining 4 recessions that occurred in 1935-2012, including the Great Recession of 2008-09?
The brief recession of 1945 was likely caused by reduction of the US government supply and military orders
in the end of the WWII. And the similar causes likely triggered the recession of 1953-54 after the end of
Korean War (historically, the recessions quite often happened after the end of major wars). The painful
recession of 1974-75 was caused by the oil price shock. And the Great Recession of 2008-09 was triggered
by the collapse of sub-prime lending in the US, which exposed massive overvaluation of the housing stock
and flaws in mortgage lending and securitization practices.

Mikhail Gorbanev (2012): In the 64 years from 1948 to 2012, all 6 periods of sunspot maximums overlapped
with minimums of the US unemployment rate. Moreover, each time the dynamics of unemployment changed
from the declining trend to a rapid increase, with the unemployment rate peaking 2-3 years after the sunspot
maximums.

Sunspot Cycle 24: "None of us alive have ever seen such a weak cycle"

Conventional wisdom holds that solar activity swings back and forth like a simple pendulum.  At one end of the cycle, there is a quiet time with few sunspots and flares. At the other end, Solar Maximum brings high sunspot numbers and solar storms. It’s a regular rhythm that repeats every 11 years. 

Reality, however, is more complicated. Astronomers have been counting sunspots for centuries, and they have seen that the solar cycle is not perfectly regular. For one thing, the back-and-forth swing in sunspot counts can take anywhere from 10 to 13 years to complete; also, the amplitude of the cycle varies. Some solar maxima are very weak, others very strong (HERE). 

But "none of us alive have ever seen such a weak cycle [as the sunspot cycle 24]", said Dr. Leif Svalgaard of Stanford University and other prominent solar scientists at the 2013 Fall Meeting of American Geophysical Union (AGU), held on December 11, 2013 in San Francisco. This solar max is weak, and the overall current cycle conjures up comparisons to the famously feeble Solar Cycle 14 in the early 1900s (see also HERE & HERE).

John Hampson recently expected the "solar cycle 24′s flat top to end by mid-2014", and one of two possibities playing out: "One, equities peak out within the next 6 months, commodities don’t come again, and we thereafter enter the typical post-solar-peak recession (deflationary). Or, two, equities are peaking now and commodities are breaking upwards out of their large consoliation triangles since 2011 to produce a typical late-cyclical final rally and help tip the weak economy into that recession." (see also HERE).

Credits: John Hampson

Credits: Jan Alvestad

 

Credits: Jan Alvestad

Solar Tides & Financial Markets | Al Larson

Astrophysics & Chaos [Mar 30, 1999]

"The Solar Energy System does affect markets. The Sun gives off radiation which varies by about 2 percent. These variations are caused by tidal forces that the revolving planets exert on the gases in the Sun.

These tides cause vortexes in the Sun’s surface leading to solar flares, coronal holes, and magnetic storms. The energy changes from these are carried to Earth on an ionized stream of particles called the Solar Wind.

When the Solar Wind reaches Earth it is deflected around the Earth by the Earth’s magnetic field. 

This creates a magnetosphere around the Earth. At the poles ionized particles can penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere. Changes in the solar radiation cause changes in the voltage in the ionosphere.

This in turn causes changes in the electrical currents flowing through people standing on the Earth. These emotional swings account for about 40 percent of price motion."

 

Al Larson a.k.a. Hanns Hannula [extracted from his "Cash in on Chaos Newsletter" @ www.moneytide.com - more HERE & HERE]

 

Hans Hannula (1991): A Lunar Chaos Theory; p. 14

The Cloud Mystery | Henrik Svensmark

Nir Shaviv and Henrik Svensmark (HERE)

Looking at the Milky Way from above, we see four giant spiral arms. Our solar system is currently located within a small armlet called Orion between the two big spiral arms Sagittarius-Carina and Perseus. But it doesn’t stay there. It rotates at a speed of some 830,000 kilometers per hour around the galactic center and does a whole round about every 250 millions years. This rotation period is called one galactic year. That means on average every about 65 million years our solar system moves through one of the major spiral arms of the milky-way. 

The Solar System's passage
through the Milky Way (HERE)

During such a passage the average temperature on Earth is about 5-10°C colder than outside the spiral arms where more clouds can be created and are causing cooler climatic conditions. Within a spiral arm more cosmic rays reach the Earth because there are more super novae in the immediate neighborhood of our solar system. These dying stars are sending out cosmic rays, subatomic particles with enormous energy rushing through the galaxy at almost the speed of light. And some of them shower and bombard the Earth. In our atmosphere the cosmic rays are nuclei for condensation of water vapor and cloud formation. And the clouds reflect the sunlight and cool the Earth.

The Sun of course also plays an important role in the formation of clouds: When there are a lot of sunspots, the magnetic fields of the Sun are emitting more charged particles, called the solar wind. The solar wind fights and neutralizes the cosmic rays and controls how many of them reach the Earth. During the 20th century the magnetic activity of the Sun has almost doubled. As a result fewer cosmic rays reach the Earth, the cloud cover became thinner and the Earth’s climate warmer. 

Nir Shaviv (HERE)

A ‘lazy’ Sun would produce less magnetic activity, less solar wind and more cosmic rays would reach the Earth’s atmosphere able to build up clouds there and to cool the planet’s climate down: The Sun controls the Earth’s cloudiness. The climate is controlled by the clouds. The clouds are controlled by cosmic rays. And the cosmic rays are controlled by the Sun.

Sources: Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen, astrophysicists, Danish National Space Institute (DTU Space), Copenhagen | Nir Shaviv, astronomer,  Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem | Jan Veizer, geologist, Department of  Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa and Institute for Geology, Mineralogy and Geophysics, Bochum Ruhr University | Jasper Kirkby (2011): The CLOUD experiment at CERN [65 m] | Lars Oxfeld Mortensen (2007): The Cloud Mystery - Henrik Svensmark on Climate Change [53 m] | Martin Durkin (2007): The Great Global Warming Swindle [76 m]

SPX vs Solar Flux & Lunar Cycle

Active Region 1613, located in southern hemisphere, produced three M-class solar flares in last 6 hours. At 23:28 UTC, November 12, 2012 it peaked with M2.0 solar flare, then on November 13, 2012 at 02:04 an impulsive M6.0 peaked followed by M2.5 at 05:50 UTC (HERE). 

See also HERE & HERE

SPX vs Delta - Update

A high (ITD #3) around Equinox - a Gann Natural Trading Day clustered with more astro-events (HERE & HERE) - would also be perfectly in line with the seasonal pattern:

2008-11-05 High + 1416 CD = Sep 22 (Sat) = 4 Lunar Year Cycle (LTD)
2011-10-04 Low + 354 CD = Sep 22 (Sat) = 1 Lunar Year Cycle inverted (MTD)
2012-05-29 High + 118 CD = Sep 24 (Mon) = 4 Lunation Cycle (ITD)





Though THE high projected for late August is not in yet, the 1972-2012 correlation = 40 year Cycle has increased to 89% !