Quick answer: No, not in any way we could measure. We checked every Mercury retrograde from August 2017 to July 2026 (29 periods, 643 days) against Bitcoin's daily closes. BTC averaged +0.04% a day during retrograde and +0.18% outside it (p = 0.44). Daily volatility was 3.56% vs 3.48% (p = 0.90). Half of the 28 complete retrogrades ended up, half down. Stations didn't mark turning points either (38.6% vs 42.1% for random days).
Every few months crypto Twitter fills with the same warning: Mercury is retrograde, don't trade, don't sign anything, and expect your exchange to go down. It's one of the most popular pieces of astrology there is, and plenty of traders half-believe it.
So we tested it the same way we tested the Moon: exact astronomical dates, every period since Binance's Bitcoin history begins, and significance tests that ask how often random dates do just as well. Here's everything.
What Mercury retrograde actually is
The astronomy. Mercury never actually reverses. It orbits the Sun much faster than Earth does, and about every 116 days it laps us on the inside. For roughly three weeks around that pass, Mercury appears to drift backward (westward) against the background stars when seen from Earth, the same way a car you overtake on the highway seems to slide backward. The moments when it seems to stop and turn are called stations: one when the backward motion starts (stationary retrograde) and one when it ends (stationary direct).
That happens three times a year, occasionally four (2022 had four, and 2029 will too). In our data, each retrograde lasted 20 to 24 days.
The astrology. Mercury is the Roman Hermes, messenger of the gods and patron of commerce, travel and (fittingly) thieves. Astrologers link it to communication, contracts, technology and trade, so a "backward" Mercury is blamed for misunderstandings, delays, broken gadgets and bad deals. Many also watch the shadow periods, about two weeks either side, when Mercury crosses the stretch of sky it's about to retrace (or just retraced).
Applied to markets, the belief usually comes in three forms: prices do worse during retrograde, prices get choppier, and the stations themselves mark tops and bottoms. We tested all three.
How we tested
Everything below can be reproduced from public data.
- Prices: Binance BTC/USDT daily candles from August 17, 2017 (the first day in Binance's BTC/USDT daily history) to October 8, 2026. That's 3,340 consecutive days and 3,339 daily returns, close to close (00:00 to 23:59:59 UTC), with no fees.
- Retrograde dates: we computed the exact time of every Mercury station from NASA JPL's DE440 planetary ephemeris (the skyfield library), using Mercury's apparent position as seen from Earth. We then recomputed every station with a second, independent astronomy library (PyEphem). All 146 stations from 2013 to 2035 agreed to within 1.8 minutes. They also matched the retrograde calendar on our Astrology page on every date (that calendar lists US Eastern dates; this test uses UTC).
- Which days count: a day is "retrograde" if Mercury was retrograde at noon UTC that day. That gives 29 retrograde periods and 643 retrograde days: the one already under way when the data starts (August 13 to September 5, 2017, of which we have 18 days) and 28 complete ones from December 2017 to July 2026. The other 2,696 days are "direct."
- Significance: the main test slides the entire retrograde calendar along the price history, one day at a time, through all 3,338 possible offsets (wrapping around at the end). Each slide keeps the real pattern (same lengths, same gaps) but lines it up with different prices. The p-value is the share of slides that look at least as unusual as the real calendar. This matters for Bitcoin because volatile days cluster together, and ordinary tests that treat every day as independent overstate the evidence. We report the ordinary tests too.
- Turning points: described in its own section below.
Test 1: Is Bitcoin weaker or wilder during Mercury retrograde?
| Days | Count | Average daily return | Median | Share of up days | Daily volatility (std dev) | Average daily move (up or down) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury retrograde | 643 | +0.04% | +0.00% | 50.1% | 3.56% | 2.37% |
| Mercury direct | 2,696 | +0.18% | +0.07% | 51.4% | 3.48% | 2.30% |
| All days | 3,339 | +0.15% | +0.06% | 51.1% | 3.50% | 2.31% |
Retrograde days were a touch weaker and a touch choppier. Neither gap is unusual:
| Comparison | Retrograde minus direct | p (calendar slide) |
|---|---|---|
| Average daily return | −0.13 points | 0.44 |
| Median daily return | −0.07 points | 0.41 |
| Share of up days | −1.3 points | 0.44 |
| Volatility | 1.02× | 0.90 |
| Average daily move | 1.03× | 0.86 |
The ordinary tests agree: Welch t-test p = 0.39 for the average, Mann-Whitney p = 0.39 for the distribution, Brown-Forsythe p = 0.51 for volatility. Sliding the calendar to random positions produced gaps in the average anywhere between −0.28 and +0.35 points a day (95% range), and the real one sits comfortably inside.
Every Mercury retrograde since 2017
Here's what Bitcoin did in each period, measured from the close before the first retrograde day to the close of the last one.
| Retrograde days (UTC) | Sign | Days | BTC change | Daily volatility |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 18 – Sep 4, 2017 (partial) | Virgo | 18 | −4.3% | 3.72% |
| Dec 3 – Dec 22, 2017 | Sagittarius | 20 | +22.4% | 8.64% |
| Mar 23 – Apr 14, 2018 | Aries | 23 | −8.3% | 4.93% |
| Jul 26 – Aug 18, 2018 | Leo | 24 | −21.9% | 2.97% |
| Nov 17 – Dec 6, 2018 | Sagittarius | 20 | −38.0% | 5.67% |
| Mar 6 – Mar 28, 2019 | Pisces | 23 | +4.4% | 1.02% |
| Jul 8 – Jul 31, 2019 | Leo | 24 | −11.6% | 5.25% |
| Nov 1 – Nov 20, 2019 | Scorpio | 20 | −11.4% | 1.87% |
| Feb 17 – Mar 9, 2020 | Pisces | 22 | −20.0% | 3.41% |
| Jun 18 – Jul 11, 2020 | Cancer | 24 | −2.4% | 1.64% |
| Oct 14 – Nov 3, 2020 | Scorpio | 21 | +22.8% | 2.19% |
| Jan 31 – Feb 20, 2021 | Aquarius | 21 | +63.0% | 5.25% |
| May 30 – Jun 22, 2021 | Gemini | 24 | −6.1% | 5.21% |
| Sep 27 – Oct 18, 2021 | Libra | 22 | +43.7% | 3.59% |
| Jan 14 – Feb 3, 2022 | Aquarius | 21 | −12.3% | 2.94% |
| May 10 – Jun 2, 2022 | Gemini | 24 | +1.3% | 3.71% |
| Sep 10 – Oct 1, 2022 | Libra | 22 | −9.6% | 2.95% |
| Dec 29, 2022 – Jan 18, 2023 | Capricorn | 21 | +25.0% | 2.02% |
| Apr 21 – May 14, 2023 | Taurus | 24 | −4.7% | 1.94% |
| Aug 24 – Sep 15, 2023 | Virgo | 23 | +0.6% | 2.02% |
| Dec 13, 2023 – Jan 1, 2024 | Capricorn | 20 | +6.5% | 2.09% |
| Apr 2 – Apr 25, 2024 | Aries | 24 | −7.4% | 2.88% |
| Aug 5 – Aug 28, 2024 | Virgo | 24 | +1.5% | 3.85% |
| Nov 26 – Dec 15, 2024 | Sagittarius | 20 | +12.3% | 2.17% |
| Mar 15 – Apr 6, 2025 | Aries | 23 | −6.6% | 2.40% |
| Jul 18 – Aug 10, 2025 | Leo | 24 | +0.1% | 1.21% |
| Nov 10 – Nov 29, 2025 | Sagittarius | 20 | −13.3% | 2.27% |
| Feb 26 – Mar 20, 2026 | Pisces | 23 | +3.7% | 2.63% |
| Jun 30 – Jul 23, 2026 | Cancer | 24 | +8.0% | 1.69% |
Across the 28 complete periods:
- 14 rose and 14 fell. Random windows of the same lengths rose about 54% of the time. (p = 0.75)
- The average period returned +1.5%, the median −1.2%. Random windows of the same lengths averaged +3.6% (median +1.2%). Sliding the calendar, a gap that size or bigger is routine (p = 0.50).
- On a percentile scale, the average retrograde landed at the 45th percentile of all same-length windows, where 50 would be perfectly ordinary.
- Volatility vs the weeks before: only 11 of 28 retrogrades were choppier than the equal-length stretch just before them (p = 0.34). If anything, retrograde was slightly calmer than the run-up, and that isn't significant either (p = 0.42).
The worst period, November 17 to December 6, 2018 (−38%, $5,656 to $3,509), was the crash that followed Bitcoin Cash's "hash war." The best, January 31 to February 20, 2021 (+63%), included Tesla's $1.5 billion Bitcoin purchase. Astrology fans can claim the first; the second is harder to explain as "bad for financial gain."
Could you trade it?
Here's the eye-catching number. If you had held Bitcoin only during the 28 complete retrogrades (December 2017 to July 2026) and sat in cash the rest of the time, you'd be down 8%. Holding only outside retrograde over the same span made +550%, and plain buy & hold made +498%.
That looks like a smoking gun. It isn't:
- Random calendars do it too. We slid the same 28 windows to every possible position in the price history. The median result was +53%, the 95% range ran from −63% to +1,049%, and a quarter of all positions did as badly as the real one or worse.
- A few big moves decide it. Take out the November 2018 crash alone (−38%) and the retrograde-only result flips from −8% to +48%. Compounding 28 noisy three-week returns magnifies whichever extremes happen to land inside.
- Neither number is a strategy. Sitting out about a fifth of the calendar beat buy & hold by luck of timing, and the per-period test above says that timing was ordinary (p = 0.50).
Test 2: Do retrograde stations mark tops and bottoms?
This is the more interesting claim, and a popular one in Gann-style astro trading: the days Mercury "stops" are supposed to coincide with market turns.
How we defined a turn. A day is a turning point if its close is the single highest or lowest close within k days either side (a 21-day window for k = 10). We used k = 5, 10, 20 and 40, from short swings to major turns. Crypto trades every day, so these are calendar days.
How we scored it. A station is a "hit" if a turning point falls within ±3 days of it (we also tried ±1 and ±2). We had 57 stations inside the price data: 28 retrograde stations and 29 direct stations. The baseline is the hit rate for every day in the dataset. The p-value comes from 20,000 sets of 57 random days: how often random days scored at least as well.
| Turning point = highest or lowest close within… | Stations with a turn within ±3 days | Random days | p |
|---|---|---|---|
| ±5 days (short swings) | 80.7% (46 of 57) | 72.0% | 0.09 |
| ±10 days | 38.6% (22 of 57) | 42.1% | 0.75 |
| ±20 days | 26.8% (15 of 56) | 20.6% | 0.16 |
| ±40 days (major turns) | 10.7% (6 of 56) | 11.2% | 0.61 |
Split by station type (k = 10, ±3 days), retrograde stations hit 39.3% of the time and direct stations 37.9%, both below the random-day rate.
We ran this 24 ways in total: four turning-point sizes, three tolerances (±1, ±2, ±3 days), and turns measured on closes or on daily highs and lows. None reached p < 0.05. The best was 0.057, and in the closest-in version (a turn within ±1 day of the station, k = 5), stations did worse than random days: 31.6% vs 37.2%.
Notice how high the random baseline is for small swings. Bitcoin makes a short-term high or low so often that about 72% of all days have one within three days. Any calendar of "key dates" will look like it calls turns if you only look at the hits.
Is the result fragile?
A real effect shouldn't care whether you count from the UTC calendar day of a station or the day either side. So we moved every station, retrograde period and shadow period one day earlier and one day later, and re-ran everything.
| Measure | Dates 1 day earlier | Actual dates | Dates 1 day later |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average daily return, retrograde vs direct | +0.06% vs +0.17% (p = 0.53) | +0.04% vs +0.18% (p = 0.44) | +0.10% vs +0.16% (p = 0.72) |
| Volatility, retrograde ÷ direct | 1.02× (p = 0.92) | 1.02× (p = 0.90) | 1.03× (p = 0.89) |
| Complete periods that rose | 13 of 28 (p = 0.52) | 14 of 28 (p = 0.75) | 13 of 28 (p = 0.52) |
| Turn within ±3 days (k = 10) | 49.1% vs 42.1% (p = 0.17) | 38.6% vs 42.1% (p = 0.75) | 42.1% vs 42.1% (p = 0.55) |
| Turn within ±1 day (k = 5) | 42.1% vs 37.2% (p = 0.27) | 31.6% vs 37.2% (p = 0.85) | 54.4% vs 37.2% (p = 0.005) |
The return and volatility results barely move: there's nothing there whichever day you pick. The turning-point results jump around. Shift the dates one day later and the tight ±1-day test suddenly looks strong (p = 0.005). On the real dates the same test shows stations doing worse than random, and one day earlier it's nothing. A genuine station effect would show up on the actual station dates. This one lands two days off in either direction, which is what noise looks like when you test enough variations.
The shadow periods
We also computed the pre-shadow (from when Mercury first reaches the point where it will later turn direct, until it stations retrograde) and the post-shadow (from the direct station until Mercury gets back to where it turned retrograde) for every period. Each is about two to three weeks.
| Days | Count | Average daily return | Daily volatility | p (return / volatility vs clear days) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-shadow | 478 | +0.03% | 3.62% | 0.35 / 0.52 |
| Post-shadow | 488 | +0.16% | 4.21% | 0.77 / 0.03 |
| Clear days (no retrograde or shadow) | 1,730 | +0.22% | 3.20% | baseline |
Finally, a "hit": post-shadow days were about 32% more volatile than clear days, and the calendar-slide test puts that at p = 0.03, under the usual 0.05 line. It holds when you move the dates a day either way, too, because a two-week shadow barely changes when you shift it by a day.
Before anyone screenshots that, look at what's inside it. The single worst day in Binance's Bitcoin history, March 12, 2020 (the COVID crash, −39.5% from $7,935 to $4,800), happens to fall in a post-shadow (March 10 to 30, 2020). Leave out March 2020 and the post-shadow volatility drops to 1.14× clear days, with p = 0.23. Only 13 of the 29 post-shadow periods were choppier than the clear-day average. That's one pandemic, not one planet.
Caveats
- Multiple comparisons. On the actual dates we ran 38 significance tests (5 day-level, 3 per-period, 6 shadow, 24 turning-point). At the 0.05 line, about two should come up "significant" by luck alone. We got one, the COVID-driven post-shadow result. Across all three date versions it was 6 of 114, against roughly 6 expected by chance.
- What 29 periods can and can't rule out. Bitcoin swings about 3.5% a day. With this much data, a real retrograde effect smaller than roughly 0.3 points a day (about 6 to 7 points over a whole retrograde) could hide in the noise. What the data rules out is a large, reliable effect, the kind that would make "don't trade during retrograde" useful.
- Regimes dominate. The 2018 and 2022 bear markets and the 2020–21 bull run drive the big moves. Whether a retrograde lands in one of them is down to the calendar, and it swamps anything else.
- Bitcoin only. We didn't test altcoins, other exchanges, or intraday data.
What the academic research says
There is a serious paper on this, and it's worth reading carefully: "Cultural beliefs and equity prices: Evidence from astrological belief in Mercury retrograde" by Yanling Qi, Hang Wang and Bohui Zhang, published in the Journal of Banking & Finance (vol. 192, November 2026).
In the version posted on SSRN, the authors study stock market indexes in 48 countries and find returns about 3.47% lower per year during Mercury retrograde than at other times. (Earlier drafts reported 3.22% and 3.33%; we couldn't access the final published text to confirm its exact figure.)
The key point is why. The authors don't claim the planet does anything. Their explanation is an investor belief channel: people who believe retrograde is bad for money turn more pessimistic about stocks during those weeks, which drags on sentiment and returns. They trace the belief's spread to ancient Greek culture (Hermes again). Consistent with that, they find the effect is stronger where a company's value is harder to pin down and in markets more driven by sentiment.
Two takeaways for crypto:
- It's about people, not planets. If retrograde ever moves a market, it would be because enough traders believe it does.
- That effect is tiny next to Bitcoin's noise. 3.47% a year is about 0.01 points a day. Bitcoin's typical daily move is around 2.3%. Even if Bitcoin had a belief effect that size, no test on 29 retrogrades could see it, and it certainly couldn't be traded.
Where to go from here
So, does Mercury retrograde move Bitcoin? No. The returns, the volatility and the stations all look like any other stretch of calendar. That's how we treat the cosmic stuff on WenMoonLambo: a fun lens, not an edge. We found the same thing when we tested full and new moons.
If you enjoy the esoteric angle, Bitcoin astrology maps BTC's price history to eclipses, lunar cycles and zodiac transits. Members get the full Astrology lab, whose retrograde card shows every planet's retrograde windows from 2013 to 2035, either as bands over a coin from your watchlist or as a timeline, plus each planet's live status. An account starts with a 30-day Pro trial, no card needed.
If you want to test a retrograde theory (or any theory) without risking money, the $10,000 paper-trading demo is free with no signup, on real market data. If you'd rather build an edge that doesn't depend on the sky, start with the free TA course.
Frequently asked questions
Does Mercury retrograde affect Bitcoin? Not measurably. Across 29 retrograde periods (643 days) from August 2017 to July 2026, Bitcoin averaged +0.04% a day during retrograde and +0.18% outside it. Random placements of the same calendar produce gaps that size routinely (p = 0.44). Of the 28 complete retrogrades, 14 ended higher and 14 lower.
Is crypto more volatile during Mercury retrograde? No. Bitcoin's daily volatility was 3.56% during retrograde and 3.48% outside it (p = 0.90), and only 11 of 28 retrogrades were choppier than the weeks just before them. The post-shadow weeks did look more volatile, but that disappears once you remove the March 2020 COVID crash.
Do Mercury retrograde stations mark market tops and bottoms? Not on Bitcoin. Within ±3 days of the 57 stations since 2017, BTC made a 21-day high or low 38.6% of the time, against 42.1% for random days. Across 24 variations of the test, none was significant on the actual dates.
Should you trade during Mercury retrograde? The planet gives no reason not to. The real risk is the one the research points to: other people's beliefs and your own. If retrograde makes you nervous or impulsive, that's worth knowing, but Bitcoin itself behaved as usual. Nothing here is financial advice.
When is the next Mercury retrograde? Mercury stations retrograde on October 24, 2026 at 07:12 UTC and stations direct on November 13, 2026 at 15:54 UTC, moving back from 20°59′ to 5°02′ Scorpio. Its pre-shadow began October 4, and the post-shadow ends November 30, 2026. The one after that runs from February 9, 2027 (17:36 UTC) to March 3, 2027 (12:32 UTC), from Pisces back into Aquarius.
How often does Mercury go retrograde? Three times in most years, occasionally four, for about three weeks each time: every retrograde in our data lasted 20 to 24 days. Mercury spends roughly a fifth of the year retrograde (19.3% of the days in our dataset).
The bottom line
Mercury retrograde is a real optical effect and a durable piece of folklore, and the only market effect anyone has found for it runs through human belief. On Bitcoin, nine years and 29 retrogrades of data show nothing: not in returns, not in volatility, not at the stations. The one result that crossed the significance line was the COVID crash wearing a shadow-period costume. Blame your delayed email on Mercury if you like; size your trades on something else.
Data: Bitcoin daily closes (BTC/USDT) from Binance, August 17, 2017 – October 8, 2026 (3,340 days). Mercury stations computed from NASA JPL DE440 (skyfield) and cross-checked against PyEphem (all within 1.8 minutes) and against the WenMoonLambo retrograde calendar (all dates match). 29 retrograde periods (28 complete), 57 stations. A day counts as retrograde if Mercury was retrograde at 12:00 UTC. Returns are close-to-close and ignore fees. Calendar-slide tests used all 3,338 offsets; random-date tests used 20,000 draws. Analysis run October 9, 2026. Past performance is not predictive.
The esoteric layer on WenMoonLambo is entertainment, not a forecast. Nothing here is financial advice. WenMoonLambo is a paper-trading platform: all trading happens with play money on real market data.