Weekly column: Surging inflation and the Pluto direct tech wreck in the Nasdaq

Review

WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) – US consumer prices accelerated in September as the cost of gasoline surged, dealing another blow to President Donald Trump and his Republican Party ahead of the November 3 midterm elections and putting an interest rate increase later this month back on the radar.

—Lucia Mutikani, “US inflation heats up in September; Fed rate hike this month back on table,” Reuters, October 14, 2026.

It was a bit of a tech wreck last week in the U.S. Pluto changed directions and went direct in Aquarius (tech), and the NASDAQ led the declines. It tumbled the hardest of the week (its worst stretch in months) as AI-related names faced renewed scrutiny over valuations and higher borrowing costs.

The S&P 500 dropped as well, but the Dow squeezed out a gain. Overall, inflation data and questions around the sustainability of the AI investment boom remain key drivers, with markets weighing the Fed’s data-dependent path against seemingly resilient growth and energy-related stress. By the end of the week, the market didn’t seem as convinced about a Fed rate hike on October 28.

European markets finished the week higher and near their best levels, with the FTSE leading the most. The DAX and the AEX were also higher. The Asia-Pacific region ended more mixed: the Nikkei and Kospi rebounded Friday after sharp prior declines, and the Shanghai Composite fell for the week. The Australian All Ordinaries market posted solid gains.

Precious metals were quiet overall, with gold finishing the week modestly lower. Cryptocurrencies were largely flat, although the new low in Ethereum, but not in Bitcoin, is rather notable. Oil prices continued to rally as geopolitical tensions remain elevated, while bond prices managed a short-covering rally (rates dropped). We usually don’t see T-Notes and oil move in the same direction for long.

Short-term geocosmics

Are we going two steps forward and one step back, or two steps back and one step forward? That’s the best way I can describe the current planetary climate, especially regarding directional changes.

Last week, Pluto went stationary direct. Two weeks ago, Venus went retrograde. Later next week, Mercury goes retrograde on October 24. In November, Venus and Mercury go direct on the same day (November 13). Then, in December, Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune all change direction within three days.

If you consider these movements, it’s no surprise the NASDAQ is basically back where it was in mid-May, while the Dow is back where it was in late June. But in between, we’ve seen new all-time highs, drawn-out corrections, and even sharp, short pullbacks. When it’s all said and done, we’re pretty much right back where we started.

Nevertheless, the geocosmic parallels between now and the March–April 2025 period, specifically with respect to Mercury and Venus retrograde, cannot be ignored.

Back then, the retrograde motions were mainly in Pisces, a water sign. This time around, they’re in Scorpio, a water sign. In 2025, Venus was in Aries for a bit before retrograding back into Pisces, whereas this time, it’s in Scorpio before retrograding back into Libra.

The 2025 retrograde motions corresponded with Liberation Day volatility and significant market downside. Now that these planets are almost on the opposite side of the zodiac, could it correspond to a crest this time?

The headline risks in the coming weeks are huge. Whether it’s earnings, inflation, a Fed meeting, or the U.S. midterm elections, the market is walking a delicate tightrope. It could easily turn into a “Buy the rumor, sell the news” event.

Lastly, how remarkable was Venus retrograde corresponding with a growing expectation of a pause in Fed rate hikes? History shows the slower the Fed raises rates, the more bullish it tends to be for stocks—until it’s not.

Longer-term thoughts (and opinion)

“Since Wednesday, chances of a merger happening before March jumped on Friday to 56% from 29% on Kalshi. Odds for an integration before April and May rose to similar levels.”

—Ananya Chetia, “Prediction Market Odds on Tesla-SpaceX Merger Are Above 50% for Early 2027,” CNBC, October 16, 2026.

Contrary to popular belief, market tops take time to occur. They seldom occur as singular events like market bottoms often do. Nevertheless, there seems to be an endless fascination within the financial community to “Call the crash.” I mainly blame Hollywood for this, which is why I like to call it “Big Short Syndrome.”

The bull market in stocks just hit its 4th anniversary since the October 2022 lows. The S&P is up roughly 118% from that low, and has satisfied various cyclical criteria for a high. But as Oppenheimer’s Ari Wald, CMT, recently noted, “This is the 6th longest of the 24 bull markets since 1932. Looking at the 5 prior bull markets that reached the 4-year mark, the median time remaining before the cycle peaked was 13 months…. The median 5th year return was 21%.”

Obviously, this doesn’t mean a sustained bull run into November 2027 is a given. Still, the astrological elephants in the room through Uranus trine Pluto and Jupiter trine Saturn cannot be ignored either. In fact, both Ray and Pouyan have demonstrated how Jupiter trine Saturn can correspond to important market highs.

Even so, the macroeconomic groundwork is being laid for such a high, and it started about a month ago when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates. Since then, the U.S. Dollar has been strengthening notably. At the same time, U.S. equities have been outperforming their international counterparts by a notable margin for the first time since early 2025.

Understand that this migration of capital from around the world into U.S. markets is a pattern often observed in the lead-up to important market highs. Basically, the Fed’s last rate hike kicked off this massive capital migration, and regardless of any pauses in rate hikes (thank you, Venus retrograde), the trend is now underway.

This happens because the United States, despite all its problems, is still home to the world’s largest and most liquid market. There comes a time in the market cycle where losing the least is an important objective in the fund manager class, and the U.S. market has a perception of offering that opportunity.

There’s also a lot of talk about the U.S. market’s concentration risk. In other words, there are about 10 stocks that make up over 40% of the S&P 500. We’ve seen similar stories before—whether it was Japanese stocks in the late 1980s or dot-com stocks in the late 1990s. Both of these manias peaked with the market leaders making up over 40% of the index.

But that wasn’t the biggest market concentration of all—it actually came from way back in the 1840s during a railroad boom, which saw rail stocks amount to roughly 63% of the equity indices.

This begs the trillion-dollar question: do we go on to test the previous record from the 1840s? AI technology, at the very least, is as revolutionary as, if not more so than, railroads in the 19^th century.

From a geocosmic standpoint, it’s interesting to point out how a pair of outer planets were in similar signs during the 1840s as they are now, except it’s flipped. In the 1840s, Neptune was in Aquarius, and Pluto was in Aries. This time around, Pluto is in Aquarius while Neptune is in Aries.

Obviously, both railroads and AI are linked to frontier development. For railroads, it was across the North American continent. Will it be outer space for AI? I think that would be preferable to a technocratic, neo-feudal surveillance state. At the end of the day, the market and the cosmos will decide.