Mercury retrograde period
Astrological term for the ~3 weeks, ~3x per year, when Mercury appears (from Earth) to move backward across the sky. The actual planet doesn't reverse — it's an optical illusion of orbital geometry. Astrologers blame retrogrades for miscommunication, technology breakdowns, and reconsidered decisions. We track it because the folk-finance hypothesis that markets get jumpy during retrogrades is exactly the kind of correlation Standard Poorly was built to test honestly. Value: 1 every day Mercury is in apparent retrograde, 0 otherwise.
— Current state —
— The series — full history —
Daily readings, every reading we have. Pick a window with the time-period buttons; flip to candles via the global toggle in the masthead (or press C). Toggle the SPY overlay to see how this series and the S&P 500 have moved together.
— What it has historically predicted —
On days when this signal fires (deviates 2+ standard deviations from its 30-day average, in either direction), SPY has historically averaged -5.1% over the next year, moving in the opposite direction 66% of the time.
— Beyond SPY — how this signal performs across markets —
Same fire days, different forward returns. Each row asks: when this signal fires, what does that asset do? The big number is the average return; underneath is how often the asset moved the same direction as the signal (50% would be a coin flip).