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COMMENTARY for Monday
TODAY'S ACTION for Monday
Rick's Picks for Monday
Because T-Bonds have been dancing smoothly with Hidden Pivots lately, we should assume they are on their way up to at least 130^08 now that they’ve exceeded that Hidden Pivot’s sibling midpoint at 128^05 on a closing basis. Accordingly, traders should position from the long side — and please note that camouflage opportunities have been cropping up on charts up to the 30-minute level. Use of the single-bar ‘C’ would have been the key to any such trade that panned out.
We are short the August 102/August 98 put spread in a 1:2 ratio three times @ 0.76. It’s time to write off the likely trading loss of $228, even though we’ll continue to carry the position toward expiration. In retrospect, the loss came from my having missed exiting some long puts on July 7. We had a profit of nearly $1000 in the position at one time and I should have suggested nailing some of it down. Indeed, there will never be a good excuse for not taking at least a partial profit when puts “come home” as they did for us, however briefly (which in the world of put options means three days, tops).
Silver’s ostensibly sharp rally on Friday, like Gold’s, looks mediocre even on the 15-minute chart. We should want to see a push this week to at least 18.680 before we take serious encouragement, since that’s where a bullish impulse leg would be generated on the lesser charts. As always, the number of prior peaks surpassed without a pause will be crucial to our assessment of strength (or weakness) in the underlying vehicle.
For all of the jacking around on Friday, buyers were unable to create even a single impulse leg on the lowly 15-minute chart. The day’s rallies, such as they were, exceeded one peak but failed to muster the required second, and so we are inclined to see this modest upwardliness as just noise and no more. Even so, to avoid being caught unawares we must monitor two prior peaks on the daily chart carefully, since any unpaused rally that exceeds both would presage more bullish action well into autumn. The peaks lie, respectively, at 1129.50 and 1142.75, so it wouldn’t take much to reinvigorate the bear rally begun nearly a month ago.
Gold has backed off a small precipice, rallying from within just 0.60 of a well-advertised Hidden Pivot support at 1155.00. Look at the accompanying chart, however, and you’ll see that bulls will have their work cut out for them if they want to restore a positive look to the lesser charts. For starters, any rally this week will need to take on external peak #1, and at least one peak “along the wall” (#2=1206.70). I’ll wait to see what Monday brings before I exhort you to get excited. (Note: We’ll move to the December contract starting tomorrow. The corresponding peaks lie, respectively, at 1207.50 and 1210.70.)
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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.
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.
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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Hidden Pivot Webinar & Tutorials
The next Hidden Pivot Webinar will be held this June 5th - 6th. 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.
Can China’s Miracle Keep the West Afloat?
by Rick Ackerman on August 2, 2010 12:01 am GMT · 32 comments
The response to Mario Cavolo’s glowing take on China and the global economy was eye-opening, to say the least. It’s not hard to understand why someone who lives and works in China, as Mario does, might believe that the country’s economic prospects are so spectacular as to all but preclude the possibility of a deflationary depression elsewhere in the world. We’re not so sure ourselves and have a few things to say about it below. But we were nonetheless persuaded by Mario’s argument, and by comments made by others in the Rick’s Picks forum, that China is doing many important things right, economically speaking. Some Westerners don’t come easily to this notion, since it requires one to put aside very troubling concerns about China’s repressive, authoritarian political regime; for it is both unfortunate and undeniable » Read the full article