(25 October 2026) Markets remained volatile last week as AI skepticism continued to weigh on the megatech stocks. With oil prices again pushing above $100 on a possible restarting of the Iran war, the NASDAQ and S&P 500 finished modestly lower while the broadly-based NYSE Composite and Russell 2000 posted gains.
So far, stocks appear to be tracking the negative influence of several alignments we highlighted last week. The SPX is trending below the bearish price pattern for the concurrent retrograde periods of Mercury and Venus (Oct 24-Nov 13) while the DJIA is barely above the long term benchmark. Although bearish, the simultaneous Mercury and Venus retrogrades may only be a minor influence as no tested interval reached statistical significance.
The approaching 135-degree alignment (i.e. sesquiquadrate) of Jupiter and Saturn on Oct 31 is another bearish factor based on its historical norms. The cumulative trend chart below shows both the SPX and DJIA tracking above the mean and median. While the outcomes associated with this alignment also failed to reach statistical significance (p <0.05), the size of the declines was much greater than we saw in the Mercury and Venus retrogrades. For this reason, stocks could remain under pressure in the short term, especially up to the date of the exact alignment on Oct 31.
The upcoming Nov 12 conjunction of Jupiter and the South Lunar Node (Ketu) is another possible source of negative sentiment. Our backtest showed that stocks had a small bearish bias both before and after its exact conjunctions, even if the data was so widely distributed that the outcomes did not reach statistical significance. Due to its recent surge of relative strength, the Dow is tracking above the mean and median although the SPX has been more bearish. The ongoing effect of this conjunction will continue to weigh on stocks in the near term, even if its overall effect is quite small.
But not all of the current alignments are bearish and even some of the bearish alignments will become positive in their post-alignment phase like Jupiter-Saturn sesquiquadrate after Oct 31. The square aspect of retrograde Venus and Mars (exact Oct 10) is another nominally bearish aspect that is bullish during its post-alignment period. So far, the SPX and DJIA are not quite keeping up with the bullish averages in our backtest, although they remain within striking distance by the end of the backtest period on Oct 28. If markets manage to stage a rally this week, this aspect will be one of the reasons why.
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