Yesterday’s spike high poked above a midpoint resistance on the hourly chart at 9605, so its ‘D’ sibling at 9768 will be in play as a rally target as long as 9441 has not been exceeded to the downside. If it is exceeded, however, your coordinates for a new rally target would be A=9249, B=9576, and C=[value of new low].
From the monthly archives:
August 2009
Our bearish position was short-lived, since we scratched September 95 puts acquired a day earlier when the Diamonds hit our stop-loss early in the session. There were two more spots where we could try to intercept — at 96.00 or 96.69 – but they come from an ABC pattern that looked a little too obvious when it began to take shape yesterday (with targets, respectively, at 96.09 and 96.78). Better to get long for the pop to the higher number, assuming it comes. This would perhaps be best accomplished using “camouflage” in the first 15 minutes of Wednesday’s session, so I’ll make that an assignment for pivoteers who are in the chat room then.
A bullish target analogous to the one given for December Gold lies at 15.515, and it should be considered a done deal if the futures can close above its sibling midpoint, 14.505.
A pop to 963.00 is possible if buyers dominate, and a close above that Hidden Pivot midpoint would indicate 975.90. However, as of early Tuesday evening, the futures had slightly exceeded the 944.90 midpoint support of a down-ABC begun at Monday’s high, 985.50. If the pivot gives way, that could be telegraphing more slippage to as low as 933.50.
There are numerous bullish patterns at work in various time frames, so perhaps we should expect to see the rally fail near these levels (i.e., around $74). If crude confounds contrarians and breaks loose, however, there would be little to stop the September contract below 75.58, a Hidden Pivot. Once above that number the closest logical target would be 78.77. _______ UPDATE (10:50 a.m.): The futures are falling today, and so we might look for a tradable bounce near 71.26 in the DECEMBER contract. That’s a clear Hidden Pivot.
Let’s put a stink bid into today at 34.87, for 200 shares. That’s a penny above a ‘D’ correction target on the 5-minute chart.
The Hidden Pivot target at 1034.00 given here yesterday caught a very short-able top within a single point. I recommended partial profit-taking yesterday below 1026.00, but I’ll track two short contracts for the guidance of anyone who stayed short as I suggested. Imputing the theoretical gain so far to the contracts that remain gives us a cost basis of 1042.00 for each. Cover one at 1022.00 and use a 1030.00 stop for both, o-c-o (one-cancels-other: this means that if you are unable to cover the one contract at 1022.00, it should also be tied to the stop at 1030.00. _______ UPDATE (8:49 a.m.): The overnight low was 1018.25, allowing one of our two short contracts to be covered at the suggested price (i.e. 1022.oo or better). Imputing the 15.75-point theoretical profit to the remaining contract gave it an adjusted cost basis of 1057.75. It should have been exited on the 1030.00 stop-loss, yielding a theoretical trading profit of $1385 for the four-contract position that we established yesterday.
The Diamonds and the E-Mini S&Ps followed our script precisely yesterday, allowing Rick’s Picks subscribers to get short from the intraday highs in both. Because the E-Minis were raising some hell Sunday night, we allowed for a rally to as high as 1046 on Monday – equivalent to about a 200-point thrust in the Dow Industrials. However, we saw an opportunity to get short at a lower target, a Hidden Pivot at 1034.00, and put out the following trading recommendation: ”…a lesser target at 1034.00 can be shorted by scalpers with a 1.25-point stop-loss provided it’s hit in the first hour and 1020.50 hasn’t been exceeded » Read the full article
We hold the January-October 130 put spread four times for 3.40 but were unable to buy a round lot of stock yesterday on our terms as a hedge. Let’s try another approach today, bidding 3.10 for a single October 175 call, day order.
A Timely Apocalypse Could ‘Save’ Debtors
by Rick Ackerman on August 26, 2009 12:01 am GMT · 12 comments
If nothing else can stop a runaway stock market, there’s always the astrologers. Pick any day of the year, and odds are it’s circled in red on some star-gazing guru’s End of Days calendar. The higher stocks go, the louder their predictions of disaster. Not that we haven’t joined the chorus of despair ourselves from time to time. How else is a guru supposed to gin up business during the dog days of summer? At the moment, the sexiest prediction out there is the Mayan apocalypse slated in 2012. Perhaps the Mayans would have pushed » Read the full article