TACO time is approaching for President Donald Trump, based on one formula.

The term TACO - "Trump always chickens out" - has become a popular, if not always reliable, method to forecast the next turn from the mercurial American president, who's now leading a new fight against Iran that few see as winnable.

So analysts at a geopolitical advisory firm have created a mathematical formula, using Trump's well known sensitivity to financial-market moves.

First, the variables: Brent crude oil (BRN00), the U.S. 10-year yield BX:TMUBMUSD10Y, the number of Hormuz crossings and the S&P 500 SPX.

Analysts at Signum Global Advisors led by Andrew Bishop weighted the components and evaluated the president's sensitivity to them, taking March 7 as a starting point, a week after the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran.

Then, they plotted his pivot to ceasefire negotiations, on March 22, his acceptance of one on April 7, and his decision to focus on a memorandum of understanding on May 18.

The results: it takes a 2.3 to 3.4 standard deviation move for Trump to act - or an average of 2.9 standard deviations.

Putting that in today's terms, the analysts find it's not yet time to TACO - but it's getting closer.

"Extrapolating linearly would suggest that a TACO could happen as early as July 22 and 'should' happen no later than July 30 (unless conditions materially improve, which seems unlikely) - with history suggesting July 26 as most likely," they said.

Oil futures (CL00) on Wednesday hit a six-week high as U.S. stock futures (ES00) traded lower.

-Steve Goldstein

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July 22, 2026 04:10 ET (08:10 GMT)

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