Tuesday, February 22, 2011

If a Hidden Pivot at 95.90 doesn't contain this rally, expect a renewed burst to at least 99.26 over the near term. Both targets are shown in the 240-minute chart (see inset).  If the lower target is easily exceeded, meaning decisively and within an hour or two of first being touched, consider the higher a lock-up.

Shortly after midnight, reactions were under way to the steep run-ups in bullion during Presidents' Day. Please note that there's a possible gold trade in the offing for night owls -- and, also, that I've posted a new, very bullish target above $36 for March Silver that comes from the weekly chart.

Monday's impressive run-up all but clinched the case for a test over the near term of the 1434.10 all-time high recorded in December. More immediately, night owls can try bottom-fishing at 1400.50, stop 1399.90. That's the 'd' target of a minor correction derived from the pattern shown in the chart. _______UPDATE (3:14 a.m. EST):  We were stopped out for a theoretical loss of $60 when the 1400.50 pivot evinced no support whatsoever. This implies more weakness ahead to a minimum 1396.20, a Hidden Pivot that can be bottom-fished with a three-tick stop-loss.

The futures have sold off sharply after moving relentlessly higher since last Thursday.  We were using a 34.665 rally target that remains valid, but I'll suggest augmenting it with an imagination-stretcher at 36.625 that is clearer and which comes from the weekly chart (see inset) rather than the larger intradays.  More immediately, the corrective downtrend, viewed on the five-minute chart, projects to at least 33.265, but the futures could fall to 32.890 if it's breached. (a=33.975 on February 21 at 9:40 p.m. EST).  Both of these Hidden Pivots can be bottom-fished with a stop-loss as tight as four ticks.

We shorted 12355 and took a partial profit on the 29-point pullback that ensued. I'll assume that any subscriber who took the trade covered on a feint later in the day to 12379, but if you stayed short, please let me know in the chat room or at rick@rickackerman.com so that I can establish a tracking position of two contracts for your further guidance. In any event, as suggested with the E-Mini S&Ps, you should look for opportunities to re-short this vehicle at the 'p' midpoint or 'd' target of any minor, upward abcd retracement that occurs. In addition, I'll be posting explicit entry instructions for subscribers here and in the chat room if I spot a compelling opportunity intraday.

A compelling Hidden Pivot at 1356.00 has been our lodestar for the last 130 points, after the futures tripped a theoretical "buy" signal at 1213.50.  On Friday, they got within 13 points of our target, and although I still regard it as theoretically viable, we need to be alert to the possibility that the Mother of All Bear Rallies could die without having reached it. That possibility was driven home by the so-far 17-point selloff  that has occurred in thinly traded holiday markets.  The move is robustly impulsive on the hourly chart, having surpassed no fewer than one internal low and four externals.  We'll look for opportunities to get short in real time intraday, so stay tuned for updates here and in the chat room. In the meantime, if you're proceeding on your own initiative, shorts should be considered from the 'p' midpoints and 'd' rally targets of every minor upward retracement.

Just when we were starting to adapt to living in these accursedly interesting times, the times have waxed positively exciting. Uh-oh. Who’d have believed that the full-tilt political battle going on in Wisconsin would get pushed below the fold by riots in…Tripoli? And yet, that’s how the news was played over a weekend stretched to three days by a Monday holiday. From a news perspective, one of the most interesting things about both of these watershed events is that their respective outcomes seem predictable.  In Wisconsin, as well as in every other state where the issue is put to a legislative vote, the public-employee unions seem likely to lose simply because the states are bankrupt -- or soon will be if existing salary and benefit agreements are not either voided or cut back drastically.   As for Tripoli and the rest of a caliphate yearning to be born, the would-be dictator-for-life will fall and Islam will triumph. There is reason to think this could occur, over the next several years, without much further violence. On this matter we cite the public statements of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a charismatic Egyptian cleric recently returned from exile in Qatar whom some are calling Egypt’s Khomeini. While the 84-year-old Qaradawi presumably agrees wholeheartedly with the goal of bin Laden and al Qaeda to subjugate the world under Islamic law, he has argued that this objective and all others dear to fundamentalists can be achieved through the ballot box, since Islamists have been winning just about every election in which they’ve participated.  Peaceful Islamic Revolution?  It would be ironic if the Arab world embraced Islamic rule peacefully even as public-employee unions in the U.S., their backs to the wall, turned violent in a last-ditch battle for survival.  The possibility of this occurring is not so farfetched when one