Friday, June 19, 2009

The intraday charts are extremely muddled, suggesting a close match between bulls and bears at the moment. The former would gain the upper hand, however, if they can push TLT to 81.09 today.

If the futures fall, the first place where I would recommend aggressive bidding is at _____, a Hidden Pivot derived from the somewhat obscure pattern shown in the chart.  Alternatively, it would take a pop to _____ -- one tick above the look-to-the-left peak shown in the chart -- to turn the  lesser oontraday charts bullish (although not the hourly).

After a promising thrust early in yesterday's session, the futures squandered the opportunity with a move sideways that looked like timid consolidation for a push this morning to _____. That's a Hidden Pivot resistance, and because the rally stalled within a single tick of its ____ midpoint sibling, I'll recommend shorting ____ with a stop-loss as tight as _____.  The trade will remain viable as long as the point 'C' low at ____ is not exceeded to the downside first.

The futures failed to create an impulse leg on the daily chart at the top of the last rally, so we should look for the correction to come down to at least _____. That would represent a 0.618 retracement of the move off last Thursday's lows, but any lower would corroborate our suspicions of latent weakness (i.e., of a bear rally).  Alternatively, a thrust to the upside exceeding _____ would turn the lesser charts bullish and give the futures a shot at, most immediately, _____, or as high as _____ if that number is exceeded on a closing basis.

The U.S. may still be able to cajole China and Japan into buying our soon-to-be-worthless Treasury debt, but members of the so-called BRIC alliance -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- have been easing toward the escape hatch.   A subscriber of ours whose firm trades in far-flung global markets sent us the following dispatch -- a cautionary note for all who may have been unduly impressed by last week's nominally successful Treasury auction. Our correspondent writes as follows:   "Stop me if you've heard this one.  Four men met in a room (see picture below) yesterday somewhere in Central Russia to discuss how they were going to spend their money. Oh sure, they made a rousing and high-minded statement of their commitment to advance the reform of international financial institutions, asked for a greater voice for emerging and developing countries, and lastly expressed a 'belief' that there is a 'strong need' for a stable, predictable, and more diversified international monetary system. That last clause smacks of diplomatic delicacy over the words that no one seems to want to speak, the unmentionable US Dollar. "Let the impact of this meeting sink in, particularly since it was barely covered by U.S. media and in fact the U.S. was not invited. We think these guys actually talked about where their massive US$ reserves are going and whether they are prepared to continue to support our deficits -- or are they going to spend their Franklins before they lose value acquiring minerals, assets, and businesses world-wide to support growth in their own economies?  I don't know about you, but if I had to read between the lines of the slippery official ministerial poppycock, I'd sure bet that all of them went home thinking that door #2 is a much better option for them. Bottom line: Since I can still buy

I am in Telluride for the Bluegrass Festival but will check in on the markets later tonight, before I turn in.  If there are any interesting opportunities, I'll flag them in Friday's touts, but I won't be in the chat room during the day.