We recently connected with Raymond Merriman and have shared our conversation below.

Raymond, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear a story from back when you were an intern or apprentice. What’s a memorable story you can share with us?

I had the good fortune to meet Walter Bresseert, a world renowned cycle’s analyst and commodities trader, in 1980 while lecturing in Tucson, AZ. He was interested in my research on financial markets related to astrological factors. He offered to mentor me in cycle studies related to commodities over the next two years, which completely turned my life and business around. It resulted in the publication of “The Gold Book: Geocosmic Correlations to Gold Price Cycles,” the first book ever on quantitative studies correlating cycle highs and lows in a financial market (Gold) to planetary cycles. This unexpected but most fortunate meeting led to the founding of the Merriman Market Analyst Inc. It also led to the immense interest in Financial Astrology, which became – and still is – one of the hottest subjects in the field of astrology. Very few people were interested or involved in financial market timing using geocosmic factors. But today, thousands of professional and independent traders use the methods developed in that book in developing their trading and investment plans, And MMA (Merriman Market Analyst) is the world leader in providing market timing services products, and education.

This eventually led to the creation of MMTA – the Merriman Market Timing Academy – in 2012 where my staff and myself personally train (mentor) approximately 50 students (apprentices) over our 2-year training program to become exceptional financial market timing analsyis..

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I did my undergraduate and postgraduate work in Psychology at Michigan State University. During my last year’s there I was introduced to astrology, which tied in well with my interest in psychology. I paid my way through school those last year’s by doing astrological consultations.

In 1980, I met Walter Bressert, a well-known commodities trader and analyst who introduced me – and apprenticed me – in the study of cycles related to financial markets. After I wrote the Gold Book, I started monthly l market letter on Gold and Silver trading. Once the book was completed, I got a call to appear on “Money Talk” with the Financial News Network (FNN, before it became CNBC). My subscriptions jumped from 35 to 350 subscribers immediately after. So many people were interested in this subject! I became regular contributor for the next three years on FNN, until I joined the Wall Street firms as an Investment Advisor, first at Prudential Bache, then E.F. Hutton, then Paine Webber (1990-1994) where I became Vice President of Retail Commodity Futures.

In 1994, I left Wall Street to focus on my own company, MMA. I wanted to research and find all the cycles relates to the stock market. This began a 16-year project that resulted in “The Ultimate Book on Stock Market Timing,” five volumes totalling over 1600 pages of research studies and strategies related to market cycles and their correlation to planetary cycles, as well as to chart pattern, and specific technical momentum indicators. This was finally completed in 2012.

It was at this time that I realized I needed to train others in the methodology I created if I wanted this knowledge to help others and not just go the cloud with me. And thus came the idea for starting MMTA, the Merriman Market Timing Academy.. However, i also realized I would need to expand my help staff from two secretaries to those who could 1) oversee the Academy and 2) eventually teach my methods. Today, we have trained approximately 200 students in the MMA methodology of market analysis and timing, and we now have the top ten or so working with us as financial market analysts, plus several editors for our annual Forecast Book, monthly, weekly, and daily services, and various webinars we give throughout the year to our clients in Asia, Europe, and North America. We not only cover the stock and precious metals markets, but also currencies, grains, treasuries, and crypto. We also have a daily MMA Options letter that is updated often during the day that just started in January 2026, and is already doing very well.

I think the quality of series we offer with our reports and webinars, plus our focus on quality education, plus our selection of books and software on the subject, sets us apart from anyone in this field. No one offers the market timing services, products and educational opportunities that we do. In this field, we have a saying that “Timing is Everything.” We also have a saying that cycles and geocosmic studies give that “extra edge that all trader seek.” And I think we have the finest trained financial cycles analysts you will find anywhere in the world. They are not just theorists. They have actually conducted several exceptional quantitative research studies and papers before we graduate them. The future of financial market timing and cycles analysis will be in good hands for many years ahead.

Thereis nothing quite like MMA avaikable anywhwre in the world today. And I am quirte proud of what we have built since we incorpiorated in 1982, and in parptucalr, what we have build in the past five years wirth all the new analysts that we have trained and hired to work with us, as well as our customer service team that serves our clients in a freindly and professional manner. Quality service and accurate analyis are the factors we value most and explains our abilty to remain in this highly competitive field for over 40 years,

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Have you ever had to pivot?

When I finished writing the 5-volume series on “The Ultimate Books on Stock Market Timing” (1997-2012), I realized I had to pivot to education. I had to teach this methodology to others or else it would disappear when I went to the cloud, So I interrupted my life for two years to personally train 40 students who would come from various parts of the world and spend eight weekends (four days each) over two being trained by me in the method of market timing, trading and investments that I had spent the last 16 years doing research studies on.

This was exhausting, but it paved the way to a monumental change in the MMA business model by adding education. It provided the foundation and personnel for this business to continue well into the future.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

In 1998, I was contacted by a group called Star IQ. They had investors who were looking for an online astrological media magazine that dealt with current issues. They wanted me to write a weekly column on the financial market outlook for the coming week.

My column was very popular, but after ten years they dropped me because of my independent political views (they were very progressive, I was very moderate, and they wanted progressive), which was very disappointing. But this ended up working out well for me, because then I started posting my column on my own website for free.

In time, we had a rather large following and I decided to add a section of Announcements at the end. These announcements would inform readers of new books, new services, webinars, classes, etc, that would be coming up. This soon became our “funnel,” the means by which readers would order books, products or services. Our business started to grow nicely.

About three years ago, we entered social media with more effort, particularly Twitter which became ‘X.” We found a receptive audience here and built a respectful community (@mmacycles) of those who are interested in our market postings. Respect is very important when building a social media community because there are many on social media who cause others to leave who don’t want that type of disrespectful interaction or use your community to self-promote. So if someone attempts to disparage without being constructive, it’s easy to block them. That way you build the quality of interaction with your community that reflect your own values.

Many followers’ on ‘X’ became subscribers or purchasers of our other products, which also led to growth. We did not find this type of favorable response or support from other social media outlets that I won’t name here.

The concept of a funnel to your website where you offer products or services is very important to your future success, IMHO, and social media can provide a link to get them into the funnel. I think the key is to create a funnel of blogs or columns that are of interest to an audience on a subject that you enjoy, have a passion for. Make it free and interesting so they start to enter your world and regularly look forward to your postings. Have a website to steer them to which offers products or services for a fee that will then support your efforts financially.

Contact Info:

• Website: www,mmacycles.com
• Twitter: @mmacycles
• Youtube: @MerrimanMarketAnalyst

Image Credits

We own all the rights to these images. The Forecast 2026 book cover utilized art work from my wife Antonia Langsdorf-Merriman with assistance from graphic artist Kat Powell of Denver, CO who was paid for her work and these rights.