Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Apple, IBM in a Sleaze Warp

– Posted in: Rick's Picks

The way IBM and Apple have gotten shaken down by the specialists this week is about the most bullish thing happening in the markets right now.  If there's a bearish counter-argument, it is that DaBoyz got in at prices so low that they won't have to engineer a rally to new recovery highs to cash out.

ESU10 – September E-Mini S&P (Last:)

– Posted in: Current Touts Free Rick's Picks

The bull pattern show in the chart is as ugly as they get, but we may have to face up to its most exuberant possibility -- i.e., a thrust to as high as 1136.50. The midpoint is 1093.75, but it's not worth much for analytical purposes because it lies in the thick of the supply zone created last week.  I have my doubts DaBoyz will be able to put shorts on the run for a second straight day, but they will at least have help from the recurring dearth of sellers.

SIU10 – September Silver (Last:17.740)

– Posted in: Current Touts Free Rick's Picks

Silver appears to have bounced from a too-obvious place yesterday, a penny above the previous day's spike low. We'll give this evening's moderate rally the benefit of the doubt nonetheless, and infer the possibility of more upside over the near term to 17.880 -- or possibly to 17.975 if any higher. A negative offset, however, is that tonight's thrust failed by a tick to generate an impulse leg that would have provided "camouflage" for a long entry.

GCQ10 – August Gold (Last:1191.00)

– Posted in: Current Touts Free Rick's Picks

Yesterday one-act performance provided yet another whoop-dee-doo rally that failed to push above the previous day's high. Our focus should therefore remain on the 1140.10 correction target -- or, alternatively, on the 1222.30 "look-to-the-left" peak where a rally would begin to look feisty. Best case today, based on the 15-minute chart, would be 1202.10, subject to a midpoint test at 1195.70.  Those numbers will remain valid as long as 1189.20 has not been exceeded to the downside.

Gulf Scare Stories Yet to Be Refuted

– Posted in: Commentary for the Week of March 8 Free

Just when we thought it might be safe in another five or ten years to go back in the water, our muckraking colleague Matt Drudge is out with a report asserting that methane levels in certain areas of the Gulf of Mexico are a million times higher than normal.  Drudge didn’t pull that number out of thin air, unfortunately – it came from a chemical oceanographer at Texas A&M named John Kessler.  A “chemical oceanographer.” Doesn’t sound like a kook, does he? “Methane levels ranged from 10,000 to nearly one million times higher in some spots than normal concentration,” said Kessler, who had analyzed water samples collected from within a seven-mile radius of the Deepwater Horizon wellhead. The possible implication is that sea life could die off in a big way because of oxygen depletion, and that greenhouse emissions could cause the climate to change. You can search the web for this story, but it is no longer available even at Drudge’s site. We found it linked at www.floridaoilspilllaw.com, but the whole methane angle seems to have fallen beneath the radar of the mainstream press. GoogleNews has provided spotty coverage of the Gulf disaster lately, presumably because the news-gathering organizations from which Google steals its stories have relatively limited access to the facts. Even so, there was a scary echo of Matt Simmons’ doomsday talk in the latest, officially acknowledged developments. Most significantly, it would appear that the bedrock separating the oil and gas from the terrestrial world is more fragile than the guys-in-the-know care to discuss. It is also clear that oil and gas seepage is occurring away from the wellhead, and it may be occurring on a catastrophic scale. But yesterday was the first time we heard Admiral Thad Allen himself allude to the possibility of a collapse