(7 December 2025) Stocks pushed higher again last week as new inflation data was in line with expectations and further boosted hopes for a Fed rate cut.  The major US indexes have returned to their October highs and are threatening to push higher as we approach the bullish seasonality of the Christmas holiday period. This bullish outcome broadly reflected the positive bias of the Mars-Saturn square which is exact on Monday, December 8.  Our backtest of previous Mars-Saturn squares provided evidence of a bullish effect on stocks that typically begins several days before the exact square alignment.  Other alignments may have further supported sentiment last week as...

(30 November 2025)  Stocks rallied strongly during Thanksgiving week on renewed hopes for an interest rate cut at the next Fed meeting on December 10.  The rate cut optimism offset lingering doubts about the economic sustainability of the current AI boom. The gains were not wholly unexpected given Monday's Mercury-Venus conjunction.  A study of previous Mercury-Venus conjunctions suggested that stocks had a bullish bias in the aftermath of the conjunction, although the presence of retrograde Mercury complicated that view somewhat.  Whenever Venus conjoined retrograde Mercury as was the case on Monday, November 24, the window of maximum bearishness extended from 3 days before (Nov 21) until 3...

(7 December 2025) Stocks pushed higher again last week as new inflation data was in line with expectations and further boosted hopes for a...

(30 November 2025)  Stocks rallied strongly during Thanksgiving week on renewed hopes for an interest rate cut at the next Fed meeting on December...