Feb 28: Mercury retrograde conjunct Venus

(22 February 2026)  US stocks ended the week higher as markets rallied after Friday’s Supreme Court decision struck down Trump’s tariff policy. Even with the prospect of an imminent US attack on Iran, stocks are hovering just below their recent highs.

The bullish outcome was not hugely surprising given the positive influence of the recent Saturn ingress into Aries, the conjunction of Mercury and the North Lunar Node, and the approaching Saturn-Neptune conjunction.  Our backtest of these three alignments showed a bullish bias, albeit with limited confidence.  At the same time, the presence of some bearish influences made a bullish outcome far from certain last week given the Jupiter-105-Saturn alignment and the Mercury Rx-Venus conjunction.

The potentially negative influence of these two alignment were discussed in last Wednesday’s post.  Our study of the “hidden” Jupiter-Saturn alignment of 105 degrees (exact Feb 19) showed it has a bearish bias, especially during its second of three total transits in its alignment.  Due to the retrograde motions of both planets, Jupiter-Saturn alignments typically have three exact alignments in each transit series.  Our research suggests that the second of these alignments is more bearish than the other two.  However, we should quickly add that none of the intervals tested reached statistical significance, in large part due to the small sample size (n=6).  The updated cumulative trend chart is found below…

To read the rest of this post, please visit my Empirical Astrology Substack

 

 

Get notified whenever we post something new!

Continue reading

Evaluating the heliocentric progressed Mercury-Venus alignment

(2 August 2026)  Stocks finished higher last week despite some volatility brought on by renewed hostilities between the US and Iran and another spike in oil prices.  Despite the inflationary threat posed by higher oil prices, the Fed opted...

Saturn-Rahu, Saturn-Mercury and now Saturn retrograde

(26 July 2026) Stocks slumped again last week as renewed hostilities between Iran and US sent oil prices back over $90.  The increase in oil prices reawakened reignited fears as bond yields rose ahead of this week's FOMC meeting. ...

Solar eclipse specifics: A look at the August 12 alignment

(19 July 2026)  US stocks were mostly lower last week as the semi-conductor sell-off intensified on worries about AI-spending and profitability.  While the NASDAQ fell by 4% on the week, the rest of the market experienced only a modest...

Enjoy exclusive access to all of our content

Get an online subscription and you can unlock any article you come across.