Monday, May 10, 2010

If Goldman drifts lower over the next 5-7 days, we'll look to bottom-fish down at 136.11, the lowest Hidden Pivot target that can be derived from the intraday charts. If I can come up with a way to initiate the trade using a limit bid for some near-the-money call options, I'll feature the trade as a Pick of the Day for all. _______ UPDATE (May 16):  Scratch Goldman from the list of stocks we've been watching lately, since it has become too, too boring to deserve our time and attention. My minimum downside objective is now 135.35, and I'll set an alert there, since the support will be worth bottom-fishing if it's ever reached -- which it will be.

With this morning's lunatic price action, I have updated the Mini-Dow forecast to reflect a new rally targt at 10937.

As of around 10 p.m. EDT Sunday, the futures looked bound for 10670, a shortable Hidden Pivot (albeit a relatively risky one; a more conservative short can be initiated at 10712). That would represent a 335-point gain over Friday's close, and although it would not recoup last Thursday's loss completely, it would handily exceed the day's recovery high, creating an impressive bullish impulse leg in the process. _______ UPDATE (9:09 EDT):  The rally now measures to as high as 10937, well above last Thursday's pre-swoon high of 10865.  A pullback in the meantime to (precisely) 10569, the target's sibling midpoint, would telegraph the next thrust.

A print exceeding 18.910 today or tomorrow would kick the buying into high gear, creating a bullish impulse leg of daily-chart degree that would turn December's watershed high at 19.420 into a sitting duck. Anything less, however, could strand Friday's spike, leaving buyers to cool their heels in the wake of Friday's spirited charge. More immediately, there are two spots where night owls might try bottom-fishing with a stop-loss as tight as three ticks:  18.235; or somewhat more conservatively, at 18.165.  (Please note that numbers in boldface brown are usually 'D' targets of downtrends, while brown number in a lighter type-face are midpoint pivots.  Uptrending targets and midpoints are similarly given in green, although I will sometimes use brown and green to highlight price points that are important though not Hidden Pivots.) _______ UPDATE (8 a.m. EDT):  June Silver bottomed at 18.215, two cents below the higher target but well above the lower.  I'll record nothing done officially, but please note in any case that upside to as high as 19.415 over the near term has been signaled. Key resistance lies at 18.815, the Hidden Pivot midpoint associated with the target. 

Friday's robust thrust fell ten dollars shy of a 1224.70 target, subjecting Gold to a little more bullying than usual Sunday evening.  We can ignore it as long as the futures hold above 1189.20, but anything below that number will create a mildly bearish impulse leg on the hourly chart. If there's opportunity brewing for night owls, it would likely come from the 15-minute chart (shown).  The modest downtrend has a midpoint pivot at 1195.80 that you can bottom-fish with a three-tick stop-loss, and another Hidden Pivot at 1188.90 that deserves the same treatment.  Both lie just below "structural" supports whose breach will be read by most traders as breakdowns. _______ UPDATE (2:21 a.m. EDT):  A rally Sunday night invalidated the two downside targets but created two new ones. The first is a midpoint support at 1198.60 that has already been breached; the second, a 'D' target at 1190.70 that you can bottom-fish with a stop-loss as tight as four ticks. If it's hit, look for more selling down to 1187.70, my worst-case low for today and another spot to try bottom-fishing with as tight a stop-loss as you can abide. _______ FURTHER UPDATE (8:57 a.m. EDT): The futures have exceeded  1187.70, bottoming so far at 1184.40 and hinting of still more weakness to come. They'd need to pop above 1206.50 today to undo the damage.

Early Sunday evening, index futures were caught in a vicious short-squeeze that bids fair to recapture all of last Thursday's losses.  It would seem to be drawing its energy from the latest -- and rather large, even by American standards -- European bailout package.  The loan guarantees just announced amount to some $560 billion, offered to the EU's most troubled economies. This PR hoax could have legs, but from a trading standpoint it will lay an egg if it fails to push the E-Mini S&Ps above  1136.00.  That is Thursday's recovery high, and it lies somewhat above the 1130.75 peak achieved so far this evening.  The futures are currently trading for 1122.50, equivalent to a 140-point rally in the Dow above Friday's settlement price. _______ UPDATE (2:32 a.m. EDT):  DaScumballs are doing what they've been doing so very deftly since March 2009:  lifting index futures as high as they can get away with on razor-thin Sunday night volume.  From a Hidden Pivot standpoint, DaBoyz can get away with as much, perhaps, as 1170.75.

So, was it thinking machines that put stocks into a death dive last week, or was it primal human fear?  Either way, there’s a neurological disease at work and therefore little likelihood of a cure.  Even worse, since these diseases tend to be degenerative, we should expect something still more disruptive in the future. Ham-handed regulations won’t be able to stop it, either.  Let the exchanges install all the circuit breakers they want; supply will out someday, catastrophically overwhelming demand when buyers go AWOL. This is inevitable when you create a global electronic trading network connecting ten billion ganglions that at any given moment can channel the sum of all fears. Thus enabled, the stock market is like a vast nervous system lacking a brain -- kind of like Los Angeles, with mayhem always lurking just below the surface.  Last week, for a few minutes, some large clusters of ganglions in the trading network got overstimulated, resulting in a five-alarm panic whose cause has so far defied forensic explanation. The sleuths should save their breath: It was an anxiety attack. Humans have them all the time. We once knew a guy who started having panic attacks whenever he dined in a restaurant 50 miles or more from home.  If you’ve ever felt your scalp crawl, this is the sensation the guy said swept over his entire body, paralyzing him with a wave of cold fear. Heal Thyself He put himself through an endless battery of neurological tests, including an EEG, a brain scan, and all the rest.  The results came back negative, but he kept having the attacks.  Still more tests revealed nothing of medical interest.  Finally, physically and psychologically depleted after being poked and prodded for months, having epileptic seizures induced by tormentors in white coats, and being treated