Morning Brief: Monday Waning Gibbous in Aries Map Tests $82,992 BTC, $96.21 WTI, SPCX, and STRC Yield into Chicago PMI

In Chapter IX, Gann criticizes the habit of responding to a losing stock by selling a stock from another group short. He distinguishes a deliberate spread trade from an improvised attempt to make the first loss disappear. Adding a second instrument introduces a second price path; its profit is not mechanically tied to the first position's loss. Take an explicitly synthetic pair opened at the same time: a $10,000 long position and a $10,000 short position in different groups. If the long falls 8 percent and the shorted asset falls 3 percent, the long loses $800 while the short earns $300. The combined result is a $500 loss before costs. If the shorted asset instead rises 3 percent, its $300 loss deepens the combined loss to $1,100. Equal opening dollars therefore do not imply equal and opposite outcomes. Write each leg's entry, quantity, direction, and current price separately. Then add their signed profit or loss. A planned hedge also needs a reason the exposures should offset and a rule for when that relationship fails. Calling the second position protection supplies neither.

Try it

Synthetic pair: $10,000 long falls 8%; $10,000 shorted asset falls 3%. What is combined profit or loss? What if the shorted asset rises 3% instead?

Limits

This does not reject planned hedging. Equal-dollar positions are not beta-neutral. Borrow fees, financing, dividends owed, and short-sale constraints can materially change results.

Source

W. D. Gann, Truth of the Stock Tape (1923), Book II, Chapter IX, Methods of Operating, Hedging in Stocks, printed p. 46. Primary source: Internet Archive scan of the original printed book; passage cross-checked against archived OCR and local Gann Study Group transcription. Synthetic examples and modern calculations are editorial, not historical Gann trades.

Today

Using the latest common completed session, 2026-09-25, versus five trading intervals earlier, 2026-09-18, the hypothetical $10,000 XLK long and $10,000 XLE short pair shows a combined gain before dividends, borrow costs, financing, and fees. XLK long / XLE short hypothetical pair, Latest session 2026-09-25T20:00:00-04:00: 10000*(XLK_end/XLK_start-1)-10000*(XLE_end/XLE_start-1) = 704.77 USD (inputs: long_notional_usd=10000.0, short_notional_usd=10000.0, xle_end_close=62.040000915527344, xle_start_close=64.30999755859375, xlk_end_close=196.27000427246094, xlk_start_close=189.60000610351562). Data source 1 Data source 2

The name major lunar standstill suggests a Moon that stops. Griffith Observatory describes something different: the limits of the Moon's monthly north-south excursion change slowly, reaching an extreme near one point of an 18.6-year cycle. The Moon still travels between northern and southern positions every month. Think of three planes. The celestial equator follows Earth's equator. The ecliptic follows Earth's orbital plane and is tilted about 23.5 degrees to the equator. The lunar orbit is tilted about 5 degrees to the ecliptic. As the lunar orbit's node line swivels around, those tilts add or partly cancel, so in a simple plane model the Moon's declination limit is about 28.5 degrees at major standstill and 18.5 degrees at minor standstill. Turn that into something visible. For an ideal flat horizon at 40 degrees north, ignoring refraction and parallax, the rising azimuth A measured from north obeys cos(A) = sin(declination) / cos(latitude). A declination of 28.5 degrees rises near azimuth 51.47 degrees, and 18.5 degrees rises near 65.53, a shift of about 14 degrees along the horizon. A monthly motion inside a slowly breathing envelope is the picture to keep. A maximum lunar envelope does not establish a maximum in volatility, participation, or price.

Try it

Sketch the ecliptic and lunar planes relative to the celestial equator. Rotate the node line so the inclinations add, then partly cancel, and label the declination limits. Compute the two northern rising azimuths at 40 degrees north and draw both on a compass diagram.

Limits

The rounded 28.5 and 18.5 degree model is not the exact extremum for every cycle. The toy formula omits effects needed for operational moonrise prediction. The source is a public observatory explanation, not evidence that monuments or markets respond to the cycle.

Source

Griffith Observatory, Extreme Moon: The Major Lunar Standstills of 2024-2025, Opening explanation and the section 'Why is this happening?'. Physical astronomy from a public observatory explainer; horizon projection is an editorial simplification.

Today

JPL Horizons prints the Moon at +14°55′29.7″ declination at 12:00 UTC, so today it sits inside the minor-standstill envelope, about 3.58° below the 18.5° toy limit and well below the 28.5° major-standstill limit. Moon geocentric declination from JPL Horizons, As of 2026-09-28T12:00:00Z: absolute_declination_deg = abs(declination_deg); compare with 18.5 and 28.5 degree standstill envelope limits = 14.924917 degrees (inputs: below_minor_limit_deg=3.575083, declination_deg=14.924916666666666, major_standstill_limit_deg=28.5, minor_standstill_limit_deg=18.5). Data source 1