Friday, January 6, 2012

I identified a Hidden Pivot at 30.120 here yesterday as a minimum upside objective, but yesterday's price action lends more weight to another pair of pivots -- they lie, respectively, at 29.755 and 30.825 -- that will probably play a larger role over the next few days. The provenance of both is shown in the chart, and it will undoubtedly take some diligent attention to the 15-minute chart to exploit the anticipated move without risking much.

Stocks and bullion are moving in lockstep these days, and so my expectation of imminently higher share prices extends to gold as well. The March contract would become significantly more attractive if and when the rally surpasses the external peak at 1645.80 highlighted in the chart.  This seems like a good bet right now, given that yesterday's high somewhat exceeded a minor 'D' target at 1624.60 flagged here earlier, putting into play a 1646.20 target.

Yet another day of sloppy price action has left my outlook unchanged.  I expect the next move to be higher, and once decisively past 1280.75 the futures will become an odds-on bet to reach a minimum 1298.50. As noted here previously, camouflageurs should look for opportunities long and short on intraday charts of 15-minute degree or less.

In the Rick’s Picks forum, Gary Leibowitz is a square peg in a round hole. A steadfast Obama supporter, his outlook for the economy is almost as annoying. He actually thinks we’ll muddle through 2012 without a global financial collapse and believes the U.S. economy is on the mend.  Here’s Gary in his own words, posting to the forum yesterday:  “As Obama is being bashed for his outrageous spending spree over these last three years, the economy is showing improvement across the board. The dollar has to do well in this scenario, which will place pressure on commodities. The corporate earnings picture is a bit more cloudy. Overseas exposure will certainly hurt the bottom line.” Crazy, right?   In the first place, where would economic growth even come from, given the shrunken state of America’s manufacturing sector and the death spiral globally of our former bailiwick, grotesquely leveraged financial “products”?  Factor in an apparently intractable deflation in the housing sector, and the best we could hope for in 2012 is to keep the Second Great Depression at bay for another year, right? And yet, is it possible he could be right – that 2012 will end, just as 2011 did, with no world-shaking financial catastrophe to end these tolerably hard times?  In fairness to Gary, we should note that he is not all lollipops and roses. “I am not proclaiming all is well, or that we will come out of this unscathed,” he continued in his post. “I just don’t see the Armageddon everyone is expecting.  If we do hold off a recession this year, then the odds of a severe recession in 2013 increase greatly. Real estate and other ‘assets’ will most likely take it on the chin. Deflation pressures will mount. Can’t see many winners except cash.” We’d have