We tend to overtrade and over-analyze bullion, especially in the chat room, but if you meditate for a moment on the August futures’ daily chart, you’ll see that there’s not much going on. In fact, gold is trading almost exactly where it was back in February, notwithstanding some less-than-mellow ups and downs in-between. My gut feeling is that bullion quotes could hang out for quite while longer — and I don’t mean for just a few more weeks — before they blast off for outer space. In that regard, gold is not a particularly good trading vehicle right now in comparison to other tradable issues that have been trending strongly, such as bonds, currencies and crude. My suggestion to anyone too wrapped up in bullion’s hourly price movements would be to get out and see the world, in a manner of speaking; otherwise, you’re liable to start imagining things.
From the monthly archives:
June 2009
Member-only content. Please Login or get a free trial of Rick's Picks to view.
A Hidden Pivot support at 891.50 (see chart) can serve as our minimum downside projection for today. It looks so run-of-the-mill, however, and it’s so close to the May 28 low, that I wouldn’t risk more than three ticks attempting to bottom-fish there. Alternatively, the futures would need to pop to 929.00 to shake the blues that have dogged buyers this week.
It’s been a coon’s age since IBM created a bearish impulse leg on the daily chart, but it would happen today if the stock touches 105.10.
A Hidden Pivot support that has been a more than a month in coming looks like a good place to attempt bottom-fishing today if the futures ease lower. The pivot lies at 51.37, and you can use a stop-loss as tight as 51.24.
Member-only content. Please Login or get a free trial of Rick's Picks to view.
We usually seek to get short at the ‘D’ targets or midpoints of rallies, but just to have a piece of the action if shares should plunge, let’s bid speculatively for a very small put position in this vehicle. Bid 0.84 for two August 33 puts (QAVTG), good for the first 10 minutes of the session; then bid 0.81 for two more, good for the remainder of the day. _______ UPDATE (10:07 a.m. EDT): We missed buying puts on the opening for 0.84 but were able to buy two of them later for 0.81, as recommended. Do nothing further for now.
Member-only content. Please Login or get a free trial of Rick's Picks to view.
A breach, even slight, of the recent low at 14.030 could turn things ugly over the near term, since the low fell within a single tick of a downside target that took two weeks to reach. Below it, there is flimsy support around 13.680, where a series of lows occurred in May.
Calm Before the Storm?
by Rick Ackerman on June 18, 2009 12:01 am GMT · 3 comments
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 » Read the full article