Thursday, June 17, 2010

Our friend Erich Simon asked his scientist cousin in Germany what he thinks about the Gulf oil gusher.  Here is the cousin's interesting response: "The claim of several leakage sites has been around. The scientific method (and I can't deny my pedigree here) would be to say "show the data", which at the moment is unlikely to happen due to whatever degree of the incompetence <-> conspiracy continuum. Seriously, this is a very difficult situation. "Fractured seabed: wouldn't want to nuke the hole closed then..... "Peak Oil debunking? I know there are discussions between Peak Oil people vs. abiotic origin of and hence plentiful supply with oil. Fossil origin of oil means finite supply. Abiotic origin sounds nice, but if true will require extremely deep drilling = difficult = expensive = unclear whether it can supply oil at the economically required rate. Regardless of which side one takes in a fossil vs. abiotic origin debate, slowing growth or even decline of oil production by whatever mechanism (fossil oil running out, abiotic reserves too difficult to reach by drilling) has to be called Peak Oil. The debates are on whether the globe is at that tipping point. Personally I don't care too much about cheap talk of those combattants and them scoring discussion victories, but I just wonder whether we can afford to ignore the possibility of a bad outcome (i.e. Peak Oil in the strong sense) and not prepare for the coming crisi(e)s?   Even if there is an abiotic origin of oil, does one (for the time being) want to have the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? I think again an argument pushing for conservationism + preparedness. "Where the US government stands on these questions is obvious: with a military presence in the Middle East, so guess what they are

I've given Gold a conditional green light for Thursday, put pivoteers should check out the chart accompanying today's tout, since, from a Hidden Pivot standpoint, gold's readiness for another leg up was a close call. Concerning the broad averages, my rally targets for the E-Mini S&P have taken quite a pounding in the last few days, and it  remains to be seen whether Kudlow's lust for shares has been satiated.

The rally from Monday's low is impulsive enough, but there's a question as to whether the pullback from yesterday's highs was sufficient to recharge August Gold for another leg up.  The futures needed to have pulled back to 1228.13, but they turned higher from 1228.30.  We'll give the bull the benefit of the doubt, but traders should not take the implied target at 1250.30 for granted. Its sibling midpoint lies at 1239.30, so anything above that would be most encouraging. _______ UPDATE (12:23 p.m. EDT):  Gold rallied $20 overnight, topping at exactly 1250.30 this morning.  A shallow pullback during the last two hours appears to have rejuvenated buyers for a push to the next important threshold, 1272.60.

The 78.08 rally target flagged here two days ago caught yesterday's top within a nickel.  I hadn't explicitly suggested getting short there, but at least one chat room regular did. He felt he'd covered prematurely -- the futures are currently trading down 97 cents from the high, but he exited much earlier  -- so let me repeat the advice I gave him in the chat room:  "An easy way to know when to cover is to simply use the impulse-leg rule. Drop down to July Crude's one-minute chart and you'll see that we would become buyers if it shot up above 77.83, an external peak. That's really where a rally would become threatening to a scalper/short-term trader who is short."  Indeed, the best place to cover a short position will often be at the price where you might have gotten long if you'd held no position at all.

Backed into a corner by Europe's unexpected move toward austerity, an intrinsically worthless U.S. dollar is not giving up without a fight.  It will have a couple of chances to dig in its heels -- at 85.41, my minimum downside objective for the near term; or if not there, at 85.01.  These are both Hidden Pivot supports extrapolated from a 180-minute chart, which has been reproduced alongside. _______ UPDATE:  DXY dive-bombed the Hidden Pivot support once again, this time getting even closer with an 85.45 low. As before, a breach will spell more downside to 85.01 precisely.

The futures tried all day to get past our Hidden Pivot target at 1115.75, but in the end 1114.75 was the best they could muster.  A smidgen of short-squeeze could change that today, but the rally would not become nettlesome unless it exceeds a prior peak at 1118.00 that is shown in the chat. This is equivalent to a resistance noted in today's DIA tout, and it is shown in the accompanying chart.

(Editor’s note: From the perspective of Western nations, workers in China and India toil under miserable conditions for slave wages. Things are not quite as bad as that, says Shanghai correspondent and frequent Rick’s Picks contributor Mario Cavolo, and conditions can only continue to improve.  In the essay below, drawing on his own experience as a cruise-ship worker, he explains why. RA) It is no secret that Europe and America were built on slave labor. As the appalling details of Foxconn, Apple Computer's (NASDAQ: AAPL) supplier, have recently made clear, China and India are being built on slave labor’s modern equivalent. The details of the story vary,  but in the end, human beings work 12-16 hour days, six to seven days per week. They are given a place to sleep at night, a place to occasionally wash, three basic meals per day and no wage or a very low wage, such as today's equivalent of $6 per day. If a worker gets sick, his or her medical expenses are typically paid for.  Before we continue, think about that wage for a moment: $6 per day. Let's switch gears for a moment, considering the case of a well-established, international industry where people also work like slaves for 12 hours per day, seven days per week. What industry am I referring to? The cruise-ship vacation industry. However, there is an enormous difference between the intense labor demands of cruise-ship workers and factory workers in China or India – namely, the monthly wage. A typical kitchen crew-member is hired from the Philippines or Central America. With more and more ships sailing Asian waters, more and more Chinese are filling these jobs. As part of a cruise ship's hotel operation, they will work, on a contractual basis, 12 to 16 hours per day, seven days

We weathered a lot of kicking, screaming and flailing yesterday, but in the end, buying by Larry Kudlow alone proved insufficient to move the E-Mini S&P futures above a Hidden Pivot resistance at 1115.75 that was drum-rolled in yesterday's tout.  The fact that there were evidently no real sellers around was undoubtedly a plus for Larry, but he'll need the help of panicky bears if this lead balloon is to waft higher, as it might. In the meantime, we can use an "external" peak at 105.23 (May 19) to warn us when the pit bulls have begun to pose a minor threat to our peace of mind, if not to our hunch that a collapse looms.  We continue to hold four July 96 puts for 0.70. _______ UPDATE (June 18):  Two days of what passes for "action," and the Diamonds have yet to go any higher than 104.84.  They are getting heavy, for sure, but don't count DaBoyz out yet, since they have been able to sustain altitude while biding their time ahead of the next short-squeeze opportunity.