Wednesday, April 8, 2009

The futures were in a labored uptrend, inching toward a minor target at 894.10 around 2:40 a.m. This Hidden Pivot can serve as a minimum rally objective for night owls, but if it's exceeded by more than $1, the next meaningful threshold would be at

For educational purposes, and to make a little money, we'll attempt to leg into a far-out-of-the-money calendar spread -- the September 260-May 260 put spread. A single spread has the potential to produce a profit of as much as $4,000 between now and September, but if we play our cards right our risk could be no more than a tenth that.

Having bought two April 130 calls the other day for 1.34, we can offer two April 135 calls short risklessly. Let's ty to sell them for 1.14, day order. If successful it will extend the range over which our existing position would be profitable while reducing its cost.

Shortly before 11 p.m. Tuesday the futures were probing for support that seemed most likely to materialize at _____, a minor Hidden Pivot support that can be bottom-fished with a three-tick stop-loss. The support is not chopped liver, so you can take an overshoot

Our "Goldman Sachs indicator" got caught in a tug of war yesterday, rising in the early going even though most stocks seemed eager to retreat. Goldman shares eventually fell too -- in the final minutes of the session -- but not before hinting that bulls could have the last word before Good Friday ends this trading week a day early. Notice in the chart below how Goldman's peak yesterday occurred two cents above last Friday's high, 119.76. Two cents may not sound like much, and many chartists would probably read yesterday's high as a double top. However, according to the Hidden Pivot Method that we use to forecast and trade, the tiny overshoot was sufficient to refresh the bull cycle begun almost exactly a month ago. As a result, we view the stock as more likely over the near term to hit 130 than to fall to 100.  It closed yesterday near the middle of that range, at 116.08, down 57 cents on the day.    Regardless of whether Goldman leads the market higher over the near term, we could hardly be more bearish on the big picture. One reason, as even Wall Street's most vocal shills seem to be acknowledging these days, is that corporate earnings for Q2 are going to be not merely atrocious, but catastrophic. Some might argue that the stock market has already discounted this prospect, and that may be so, but it begs the question of whether it has further discounted earnings that could be even worse in Q3 and Q4. While the Obama Administration and Larry Kudlow have their special reasons for reassuring us the economy will have bottomed by then, we suspect that most investors are waiting for better evidence of this than the current, garden-variety bear rally on Wall Street. (If you'd