(13 Sep 2026)  Stocks ended lower last week as rising Middle East tensions pushed up oil prices over $100 and reignited inflation fears.  As a result, the 10-year Treasury yield moved perilously close to the psychological threshold of 5% ahead of this week's FOMC meeting.  Most market participants are expecting a hike on Wednesday, although it is unclear if a hike has been priced into equities yet. While last week's pullback was not evident in the alignments we are currently tracking, it was also not incompatible with the broader direction of the market. For example, the two Jupiter-Saturn 120-degree trine aspects are still basically following their historical norms.  The updated cumulative trend chart of the geocentric Jupiter-Saturn trine (exact Aug 31) has followed the mean and median lines below the benchmark average, although the decline has extended beyond the date of the exact alignment on Aug 31 which typically coincided with an interim low.  This was not a robust result, however, as the sample was small (n=9) which made it harder to reach statistical significance (p<0.05).  The sample was deliberately...