(16 August 2026) Stocks were mostly higher last week as the latest inflation report came in within consensus expectations. The S&P 500, the Russell 2000 and the NYSE Composite each hit new all-time highs although the Dow ended the week slightly lower.
This bullish outcome was more likely given the strength of ongoing planetary alignments. As our recent backtest showed, last Wednesday’s solar eclipse was likely to coincide with a modestly positive price effect given its wide conjunction with Jupiter. However, the updated cumulative chart below suggests current price action (red line) is much more bullish than historical norms (the mean and median lines), no doubt as a result of other simultaneous bullish alignments.
The 60-degree sextile of Jupiter and Uranus (exact July 21) is one of those bullish alignments. Unlike the Jupiter-aligned solar eclipse, the JU-60-UR aspect exhibited statistically significant effects across several time intervals. The updated cumulative trend chart below shows how the current sextile (red line) is closely tracking the historical norms for this bullish aspect as the DJIA has risen about 4% since the start of the look back period 55 days ago on June 21. Further gains are possible from here, although the chart is quickly running out of room as the full 60-day backtest window will close this week upcoming. The future influence of this sextile alignment is therefore unknown after this week.
The other bullish alignment is the NYSE tertiary progressed heliocentric trine aspect between Mercury and Venus. This is another robust, statistically significant bullish influence that could well boost sentiment well after its exact alignment on Sep 2. The updated cumulative chart below shows the current 120-degree trine aspect is tracking well above historical norms. While some mean reversion back down to the mean and median lines, the bullish influence of this progressed aspect could be felt into the second half of September. Of course, this does not mean that stocks will necessarily go higher as September alignments will have to be assessed. But its robust influence should at least put a floor under stocks in the event of any pullbacks.
On the bearish side of the ledger, the 45-degree semisquare between Saturn and the North Lunar Node appears to be out of sync with recent price action. This aspect is still actually very close to exact — less than one degree — but the red line is not tracking the historical patterns of this alignment. As suggested last week, it is possible that its negative influence was pulled forward to late July due to the Mercury direct station (July 23) which formed a near-square with Saturn retrograde (July 26). Nonetheless, there is still some lingering downside risk from this alignment as we approach its worst-performing period 20 days (i.e Aug 19) after the exact semisquare…
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