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COMMENTARY for Wednesday
TODAY'S ACTION for Wednesday
Rick's Picks for Wednesday
The dollar’s recent low missed a Hidden Pivot target that I’d drum-rolled in my commentary by just 26 cents. I offered no target for the current DXY rally, but keep in mind that once it ends, I expect DXY to plummet all the way down to 72.93. Moreover, DXY’s rally may just be getting started because the initial reversal off the 75.83 low (versus a 75.47 target) has had no problem generating bullish impulse legs on the hourly chart. If true, this would mean gold will remain under pressure for a while — perhaps another 7-10 days. The good news is that it is already under pressure but still able to home in on $1000 nonetheless. If $1000 is cruising altitude, as would appear to be the case, that’s good news for long-term bulls.
Considering that Gold has simply been loitering near $1000, chat-room interest in the stuff seems somewhat fevered. Relative to my forecast for the dollar and U.S. Treasurys (see today’s touts), I see bullion remaining under pressure for perhaps another week or two before it advances on a long-standing Hidden Pivot target at 1074.50. I’ll be ready to reconsider if the December futures start pumping out some bullish impulse legs on the hourly chart (or even a mere 1001.70 on the 5-minute bars) , but until that time, keep the 970.80 downside target in mind as a worst-case number for the near term. _______ UPDATE (1:21 p.m.): We lucked out during this morning’s weekly tutorial session when a “camouflage” entry opportunity at 1004.50 popped up unexpectedly, allowed us to get long almost risklessly. The ‘D’ target of the minor pattern used to make entry was 1005.70, but, as is the usual practice with camouflage entries, longs were to hold onto at least a small portion of their original positions for potentially bigger thrills ahead. [Note: Recordings of more than 30 Wednesday sessions are available to all seminar grads. The seminar fee includes three months’ access to the recordings, but if you’ve used that up, please contact mikej165@gmail.com to renew.)
At yesterday’s peak, the futures were just a few ticks shy of a potentially important Hidden Pivot target at 121^31. If it fails to contain the surge, however, look for another topping possibility at 122^22, a Hidden Pivot that you can short with a tight stop-loss. Switch to a 5-tick trailing stop on a pullback of 10 ticks, and use 121^24 as a minimum downside target. A top of at least short-term significance is loosely corroborated by a 43.18 target for TBT that I disseminated in the chat room yesterday afternoon. ______ UPDATE: Both vehicles trashed their respective targets, stopping out anyone who attempted to go against the trend.
We can use a midpoint support at 96.97 this morning to attempt bottom-fishing in this vehicle. Bid 1.55 for two October 97 calls (DAVJS), but stop yourself out if the stock trades under 96.89. DIA would be signaling more weakness over the near term to as low as 95.58 if the stop is hit. _______ UPDATE (10:20 a.m.): DIA was trading below the stop when the calls hit 1.55, but if you bought them anyway your loss on exit moments later would have been no worse than $12 per contract. The 95.58 target is still valid.
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Based on a 155.30 rally target disseminated here on May 6, we bought four June 152 puts yesterday for 1.00 with DIA topping at 155.14. Since I advised closing out two of them for 1.14 intraday, we are left with a profit-adjusted position of two puts whose cost basis has been reduced to 0.86. Now, offer an additional put on the opening and hold the remaining put as a lottery ticket. ______ UPDATE (12:25 p.m. EDT): The puts opened for 2.30, so the sale of one more would leave you with a single put whose costs basis, adjusted for gain so far, is a 1.44 CREDIT. Thus, a profit of $144 is the worst this trade can do no matter what happens to DIA. For now, do nothing futher.
The climax of yesterday’s bullish stampede exceeded an in-our-wildest-dreams target by 56 cents (see inset), but when the dust had settled, short positions initiated by subscribers near an 89.43 Hidden Pivot were well in-the-black. For tracking purposes I’ll use 24 May 87.50 weekly puts that two subscribers reported buying for 0.11 in the chat room. They had tripled in price by the close, and so half should have been exited at some point along the way. However, since I made no explicit suggestion that you do so, I’ll assume none were sold and recommend that you close out half at-the-market on the opening. Of the 12 that would remain, offer six for 0.50 and hold the rest for a potential home run on Friday, when the puts are due to expire. The 0.50 offer to close should be entered before Thursday’s opening, since traders could conceivably exit a total of 18 puts at that price or higher on a gap-down at the bell. ________ UPDATE (12:18 p.m. EDT): The puts opened at 0.50, so you would have reaped $900 on the sale of 18. Since their total cost was $264, there is a theoretical profit of $636 so far. You can sell the rest at will either today or tomorrow. Their cost basis is now zero, so whatever you receive for them would be added as profit to the $636.
Yesterday’s trade in this vehicle had not been offered as a tout, but a timely question in the chat room helped us identify an opportunity to pick up some cheap call options intraday. Here is what I wrote in the chat room: “The Auggie 160 market is 0.22/0/26, so 0.24 is the right price with GLD at 132.88. So, if GLD falls to our 131.83 target, the Auggie 160s should sell for about a nickel less (they have a delta value of about 0.04). So let’s bid 0.21 (an extra penny for good measure) for 28 of them., stop 0.18. We’ll worry about what to spread against them later.” Although the intraday low at 130.95 exceeded our target, the result was that subscribers were able to buy August 160 calls for 0.21, a penny off the intraday low.
This position is highly speculative, since there are two very bearish targets outstanding, but it has the potential to pay off at about 60-to-1. With a three-cent stop-loss on the calls, we’ve limited our theoretical risk to about $84. However, I’m now going to suggest giving the position a little more room by lowering the stop to 0.16. At the same time, and on a one-order-cancels-the-other (OCO) basis, I’ll suggest offering 28 August 163 calls short for 0.30 against those we hold. If the order fills we’ll own a virtually riskless position that can make us as much as $8400 if Gold rallies strongly between now and late August.
Wall Street did not exactly take Apple out to the woodshed following yesterday’s revelation that the firm has paid little or no taxes on foreign income of $75 billion. The stock flinched, down $2.73 on the day, but investors seem to recognize that revising 275,000 pages of tax code to force Apple to pay its fair share will require many years of wrangling on Capitol Hill. And who’s to say that the effort would not leave other loopholes just as easily exploited by the Sunnyvale behemoth’s clever lawyers and accountants?
Technically speaking, however, the news seems to have sapped some of Apple’s vital juices, since the stock failed for the second consecutive day to decisively exceed a small but nevertheless significant ‘external’ peak at 445.36 (see inset). That feat, trivial though it may seem, will remain crucial to the short-term picture. If and when it is achieved, expect the stock to rise to a minimum 449.9o, a Hidden Pivot target. If the pivot is easily surpassed, look for the bullish momentum to continue till week’s end, at least. Camo traders should position from the long side, using the 15-minute chart for leverage.
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Yesterday’s rebound in this vehicle was strong, although not quite as compelling as the one in Comex Gold futures. Moreover, the intraday low exceeded the midpoint support of the pattern shown by a decisive 52 cents, shortening the odds that its ‘D’ sibling at 22.25 will eventually be reached. We’ll give bulls the benefit of the doubt nonetheless, since mining shares are unlikely to languish if they catch their first whiff of strength in bullion in many months. From a Hidden Pivot perspective, this vehicle needs to keep running without taking a breath until 29.83 (a 5/14 peak) has been exceeded. Camouflageurs should look for entry opportunities on the 15-minute chart, since there are some choice ‘externals’ to be found therein. ______ UPDATE (May 23, 12:33 a.m. EDT): The breath that GDX could not afford to take has in fact been taken, casting at least mild doubt on a bullish outcome. Worse than drawing a breath, actually, GDX sucker-punched bulls on the opening bar.
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Tesla got short-squeezed to within 28 cents of the 86.72 target I’d proffered early Monday morning, but a second-wind rally to 88.00 suggests it’s got eyes for 104.44, the ‘D’ target associated with the first number. It can serve as a minimum upside objective for now, implying that all trades between here and there be positioned from the long side. We’ll plan on buying weekly puts if and when the target is reached, provided it happens before Wednesday of the given week. Please note as well that a lesser Hidden Pivot at 94.19 (see inset) has the potential to stop the rally cold and can therefore be used for spec camouflage shorts.
All signs point higher at the moment, but even Google will have to top somewhere. My best-bet for a short-able apex is 929.78, the Hidden Pivot target of a well-defined ABCD on the monthly chart (see inset). You can try shorting with camouflage at that number, or at the D target (in purple) of the lesser pattern, but until then all trades should incorporate a bullish bias. ______ UPDATE (May 23, 12:40 a.m. EDT): Yesterday’s selloff did not create an impulse leg on the hourly chart, but it is not exactly a sign of good health that the decline has begun without GOOG’s having quite achieved our 929.78 target. A further drop today exceeding 883.96 to the downside would add to the evidence that the recent top will be an important one.
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SIDE BETS for Wednesday
The futures appear to be struggling too hard to get past a relatively modest resistance at 16.410 made last Friday on the way down. Such a thrust would create a bullish impulse leg on the lesser charts, but if it doesn’t happen, look for further consolidation over the near term to as a low as 15.680.
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Credit Card Noose Tightens in Deflation
by Rick Ackerman on September 30, 2009 12:10 am GMT · 9 comments
When B of A spokesman Lawrence DiRita turned up on the evening news not long ago to assure listeners that his employer was willing to work on a case-by-case basis with troubled customers, we decided to call his bluff. Would DiRita, formerly a high-ranking official in the Defense Department, go to bat for the borrower whose “teaser” loan from the bank was about to shoot up overnight from 0% to 12.24%? Everyone with a credit card has been offered such a loan at one time or another, and it was once possible to initiate one at rates varying from 0% to 4%, with no additional fee for the balance transfer. Not any longer, though. Anyone unfortunate enough to have gotten caught with a large balance when the » Read the full article