The futures slightly bettered our 1065.00 rally target during the regular session, but they looked to be developing thrust for another leg up early Monday night. For targeting purposes the daily chart offers the most clarity, although the 1128.70 projection it yields seems a tad ambitious on so fleeting a correction. The HP midpont associated with that number is 1086.20, so let’s make it our minimum upside objective for the near term. Perhaps your best bet for catching a ride north would be to buy the ‘d’ target of a corrective pattern. As you can see in the accompanying chart, Monday’s low occurred within a few ticks of just such a target.
COMMENTARY for Tuesday
Rick's Picks for Tuesday
Night owls can try bottom-fishing at 1093.25, stop 1092.75. That’s the ‘d’ target of a very) minor correction off the after-hours high, 1096.50. If the futures find traction there and resume their giddy dance higher, use 1102.25 as a minimum short-term objective. _______ UDPATE (1:28 a.m.): A print above ‘C’ (1095.50) invalidated our target, and therefore the buying strategy. The difficulty the futures are having so far tonight reaching minor correction targets is bullish.
Using a 100.51 stop-loss, we covered a round-lot short whose adjusted cost basis was 101.68. The trade would have produced a gain of about $117 for anyone who followed my instructions exactly. The fact that the Diamonds got nowhere near their target on the correction suggests they are eager to run. Going forward, bulls should use a 101.82 target to manage risk on the way up, and bears can short there aggressively with a stop-loss as tight as they deem prudent.
The Dollar Index seems all but ordained to bounce from within the range 74.97 – 75.04, so currency traders and greenback aficionados should take heed! If the index reverses to exceed 75.43 without first achieving 75.04, take it as a sign that bulls are about to romp for a few days and possibly longer.
The futures have been working on a bullish, 125^12 target for five weeks, at least in theory, but they can’t afford to back pedal much more without turning the daily chart moderately negative. A print down to 117^17 is where trouble would begin, but a bit lower, hitting 116^29, would put bulls on the defensive.
The Gold Bugs Index signaled a rally to as high as 492.52 two weeks ago, but it seems content for the time being to lazily consolidate near that Hidden Pivot’s sibling midpoint, 441.99. If you’re looking for a camouflaged blastoff signal, I’d suggest using either of the two look-to-the-left peaks shown on the accompanying 3-minute chart.
Having bettered a rally target on the daily chart yesterday, the December contract has become an odds-on bet to achieve the next, 150.85. That would represent a rally of about 5 percent from these levels.
The futures are coming up on a 1.5131 Hidden Pivot target that looks like a high-odds spot for an important — and presumably tradable — top. Longs can use it to manage risk with a shrinking trailing stop, but it can also be shorted with a stop-loss as tight as you can handle. Once the target has been closely approached (i.e., within 4-7 ticks), camouflage players should use the 3-minute chart to board the first abc downtrend. _____ UPDATE: The rally ran into granite at 1.5059, so we’ll pull the short offer for now.
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Take any dozen good reasons for being bearish right now and they still don’t equal the bullishness of the chart shown. The undeniably compelling rally objective is 13085, a 4.8% move from current levels, and one can only surmise that the dusting the 12158 midpoint received on the last pullback (12/28) all but clinched a finishing stroke to the higher number. Moreover, it implies that bears shouldn’t get their hopes too high even if, in the next few days, the Dow plummets 324 points to retest the midpoint support. As of now, that would signal not weakness, but a screaming opportunity to get long. Hard to believe, really, but that’s what the charts say.
This Just In... for Tuesday
Sightings of ”green shoots” of recovery were as common during the Great Depression as they are now — and just as pathetic. Benjamin Roth recorded the economic roller coaster ride for posterity in a diary that was the subject of a New York Times article published over the weekend. “How it was all over by 1930 — but it wasn’t. How everyone was giddy from all the government stimulus in 1935 and 1936 — and the sudden and dramatic reversal in 1937 and 1938. It resonates, especially at a time when all the mainstream economists focus so intently over the latest tick in the regional manufacturing indices or jobless claims or inventory-sales ratios. You have to go beyond the confines of Wall Street to see what is really going on beyond the trees — this was not a recession brought on by excessive inventories, or by inflationary pressures for that matter.” Click here to access this must-read article.
The New Yorker magazine recently delved into the question of whether Martin Armstrong is a con man, a crook or a genius. Click here to access the article.
Here is Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, flatly contradicting the Goldstone Report that accuses Israel of war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. “The Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare,” Kemp testified before the U.N. Human Rights Council. ”Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.” Click here to access a short excerpt from Col. Kemp’s presentation.
Hidden Pivot Webinar & Tutorials
The next Hidden Pivot Webinar will be held on Feb. 29th - Mar. 1st. This two-day event is designed to teach you the risk-averse trading strategies Rick has taken to his seminars around the world. Once you have learned his proprietary secrets, you will approach trading and investing with enough confidence to make your own decisions without having to rely on the advice of others. For more information, or to register, click here.
No Recession at Apple
by Rick Ackerman on October 20, 2009 2:32 am GMT · 3 comments
Apple shares took a stealth approach yesterday to achieving a 199.90 rally target that we’d touted last week as a “lead-pipe cinch.” The stock had gyrated gratuitously all day, settling a measly $2 higher at 189.95; then, after the close, it rocketed $15 higher. It’s hard to imagine why every investor on the planet would not have been long AAPL shares when regular-hours trading ceased at 4 p.m. Eastern. Shortly thereafter, Steve Jobs & Co. announced a 47% jump in quarterly profits. This could have surprised no one who has been to the mall lately, since Apple stores are among the very few that teem with activity » Read the full article