(9 August 2026) Stocks were higher across the board last week as Friday’s jobs report made a Fed interest rate hike less likely at its September meeting. The S&P 500, small cap Russell 2000 and Dow all pushed to new all-time highs, and the NASDAQ is now within 1% of its early June peak.
While I thought the stars were aligning for a mostly bullish August, the extent of last week’s gains was somewhat unexpected. I had thought that we might have seen at least one or two down days last week in the aftermath of the two Saturn alignments. Our backtest suggested that Saturn’s 45-degree semisquare with the North Lunar Node (Rahu) on July 30 was often correlated with negative market returns in the days following its exact alignment. However, I had wondered if its bearish influence had simply manifested early as indicated by the updated cumulative trend chart below. Last week’s rally has taken the current alignment (red line) above the long term average of previous alignments in which Saturn is also retrograde as it is now. It is an open question, however, whether the bearish effect of this semisquare could be felt over the next two weeks as the mean and median lows typically occur 20 days after the alignment. This would equate to Aug 19.
Similarly, the near-square of stationary direct Mercury and stationary retrograde Saturn may have bottomed a bit early just 6 days after the Mercury station and is now trending above the average of its previous alignments. Previous similar alignments usually formed interim lows 9 to 15 days after the Mercury station. Even though some continuing bearish influence is possible in the days ahead, we are fast-approaching the end of its most negative period.
The reason why these bearish Saturn influences have not closely followed their previous scripts is due to the presence of some fairly significant bullish influences. The solar eclipse on August 12 may be a modestly bullish influence during its pre-eclipse period as seen in the updated chart below. Our study suggests that eclipses are not inherently bullish or bearish but their market effects may depend on alignments with other planets. Since the Aug 12 eclipse will form a wide conjunction with Jupiter, our backtest shows that Jupiter-aligned eclipses tend to be slightly bullish for stocks. Nonetheless, there can be a brief bearish period in the days after the eclipse as suggested by the cumulative trend chart. This might slightly increase bearish odds in mid-August.
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Not intended as investment advice. For educational purposes only.
