(23 August 2026)  Stocks fell across the board last week as ongoing Iran tensions pressured bond yields as oil prices stayed above the key $80 level.  Not even Wednesday's announcement of the Treasury Department's bond buy-back program was enough to restore market confidence as yields resumed their ascent on Thursday and Friday. The sell-off coincided with two bearish alignments: the Venus-Saturn opposition in sidereal Virgo on Aug 21 and the approach of the Jupiter-Saturn trine on Aug 31.  Previously, we had noted that the Venus-Saturn opposition was only slightly bearish in the days leading up to its exact 180-degree alignment.  However, this bearish effect was magnified whenever Venus was transiting sidereal Virgo, its sign of debilitation.  This produced sizeable declines of -1% to -2% in the two weeks leading up to the opposition, although the small sample size (n=10) prevented the result from reaching statistical significance. The updated cumulative trend chart below shows how the price trajectory of the current opposition is now heading lower after an initial bullish phase.  While it remains well above the mean and median, it may...