The futures appeared to be spasming their way down to 907.75, a Hidden Pivot target, when time ran out on Friday. They have bounced so far from within two ticks of that number’s midpoint sibling, 913.75, but any lower and we should infer that the target itself will be reached. You can bottom-fish with a stop-loss at 907.75, assuming the point ’C’ of the pattern (see inset) , 919.75, is not exceeded to the upside. _______ UPDATE (1:17 a.m.): The futures were slithering higher Sunday night, threatening to surpass point ‘C’ of the minor downtrend. However, my gut feeling is that the rally is a fraud — one with barely enough moxie to scare shorts on Monday’s opening. That’s because Friday’s head-fake failed to create an impulse leg even on the lowly 15-minute chart. ______ FURTHER UPDATE (10:46 a.m.): Falling overnight, the futures took a 3.00-point bounce from 907.25, allowing profit-taking or profit-protection with a trailing stop. In either case, a small gain would have been easily achieved upon exit. A little more than an hour into Monday’s session, the futures looked bound for a minimum 879.75.
From the monthly archives:
June 2009
Bear Rally Provides Cover for Spinmeisters
Bailing out the economy and the banking system has been such a brazenly corrupt, mendacious and, ultimately, doomed enterprise that one could almost forget for a moment how very clever the perpetrators are. If we needed proof that these guys are the slickest behind-the-scenes spin doctors around, consider the following two headlines that ran on successive days atop the Wall Street Journal’s front page. “Rate Rise Clouds Recovery” was the grim news that greeted us last Thursday, on day one. The article described how, despite the Federal Reserve’s explicit strategy of buying as much Treasury paper as it takes…
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Like Gold at $990, but LOVE It at $918
Unh hee-yah! Unh hee-yah! Unh hee-yah! Gold futures have been pumping iron for more than a year — and so much the better for all of us if they weren’t up to demolishing the $1000 barrier a couple of weeks ago after getting as close as $992 per ounce. We should regard bullion’s tedious ups and downs over the last eighteen months as quiet preparation for an explosive show of strength. When it finally happens, detonation will be so powerful…
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What’s Next, an Abby Cohen Sell Signal?
Sometimes common sense comes from the most unexpected places. Consider this bearish take on the stock market from – better sit down for this – a Morgan Stanley strategist, Jason Todd: “Equity markets now implicitly need a V-shaped recovery to sustain further gains,” he told a reporter for the Wall Street Journal yesterday. “We do not expect such a recovery and therefore believe the next move is more likely to be down than up.” What’s next? A warning from Abby Cohen, perhaps, to lighten up on stocks? Actually, it looks like traders…
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Calm Before the Storm?
We waited in vain yesterday for the mood change that would have made the day even remotely interesting. Instead, the broad averages spent the day scratching little sores, so to speak, creating in the process a six-hour stretch of airless tedium for bulls and bears alike. Although we found relatively few trading opportunities worth sharing with subscribers, there were reasons to think it will be bears who come out ahead on the next move. Way…
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Behind BRIC’s Smile, a Scheme to Dump Dollar
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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 920.70, a Hidden Pivot derived from the somewhat obscure but fetching pattern shown in the chart. Alternatively, it would take a pop to 945.10 – 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 928.50. That’s a Hidden Pivot resistance, and because the rally stalled within a single tick of its 921.75 midpoint sibling, I’ll recommend shorting 928.50 with a stop-loss as tight as 929.25. The trade will remain viable as long as the point ‘C’ low at 915.25 is not exceeded to the downside first.
Because the futures failed to create an impulse leg on the daily chart at the top of the last rally, we should look for the correction to come down to at least 113^05. That would represent a 0.618 retracement of the surge off last Thursday’s lows, but any lower would corroborate our suspicion of latent weakness (i.e., of a bear rally). Alternatively, a thrust exceeding 115^20 would turn the lesser charts bullish and give the futures a shot at, most immediately, 115^25; or as high as 117^09 if that number is exceeded on a closing basis.
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An Ingenious Plan to Pay All Debts
by Rick Ackerman on June 22, 2009 12:01 am GMT · 68 comments
With the U.S. sinking hopelessly into a black hole of debt, and households facing an avalanche of tax hikes that will at best postpone the nation’s day of bankruptcy, we are all hard-pressed at this point to see a way to a happy ending. Lo, along comes an anonymous e-mail that describes a way to solve everyone’s debt problems painlessly. If you think the plan can work, » Read the full article