Citigroup's shares have rallied 45% since bottoming five weeks ago. That might sound impressive, but the chart below puts it in proper perspective. As you can see, the stock has quite ways to go before long-term investors might be feeling anything close to a sense of relief. Citi lost two-thirds of its value relative to the highs of last summer, but it would need to more than double in value from current levels just to get back to where it was. Miracles do happen, of course, but our inclination, deeply skeptical as we are of any lasting recovery in the banking sector, is to short the bejeezus out of the stock, using a penny-ante stop-loss, each and every time it rallies to a particularly juicy Hidden Pivot. We've had just such a target in mind for the last week or so, and this time for a change it looks as though Citi might actually get there. Detailed trading instructions are included in the 'actionable advice' section of today's Rick's Picks. Subscribers who were in the chat room yesterday might already be short in Apple from within pennies of yesterday's high, since, on-the-fly, I advised naked-selling May 170 calls for a tad less than $700 apiece. The options seemed a little pricey considering the stock was trading for less than $169 at the time. But only time will tell, and I've recommended an 8.10 stop-loss on the calls in any event.) Concerning Citi, in the chart above, notice how the entire rally from the $18 low recorded in mid-March has yet to surpass even a single major peak on the daily chart. We'd need to see it get past two of them ' to hit 35.30, that is ' before we'd believe that the current binge might be something more than
LATEST TRADES
