Thursday, March 15, 2012

DXY – NYBOT Dollar Index (Last:)

– Posted in: Current Touts Rick's Picks

The Dollar Index has popped to within a penny of the 80.73 Hidden Pivot target shown, but as of around 2:30 a.m. it was too soon to tell whether buyers are going to pause for breath. If not, look for another short burst to 80.89, completing the larger pattern shown.  DXY will have to do a little better than that, however, exceeding the double-bar peak at 81.22 recorded on January 17, to demonstrate some staying power. Regardless, my intermediate-term outlook will remain in line with steadfastly bullish forecasts here and expectations of 90+.

ESH12 – March E-Mini S&P (Last:1396.00)

– Posted in: Current Touts Free Rick's Picks

The pattern shown has k-A and B-C legs that do not resemble each other as much as we might prefer, but it becomes more persuasive when you factor in Tuesday's hysterical gyrations centered on the 1379.25 midpoint pivot. Its 'D' sibling lies at 1419.75, and so I'll recommend shorting up there via camouflage, Effectively, this will mean shorting at the first downtrending 'X' on perhaps the two-  or  three-minute chart. You should start looking for the downturn when the futures hit 1417.25 on the way up.  NOTE: Basis the June contract, D lies at 1412.75 and is tied to a 1372.75 p.  _______ UPDATE (12:35 p.m. EST):  We got long at 1391.25 (June contract) during this morning's tutorial session, so I am establishing a tracking position.  Although one person in the room bought five contracts on the entry signal, I had cautiously advised a single-contract trade. Accordingly, and because we are swinging for the fences on this one, I will suggest a trailing stop that effects a 1:3 risk/reward.  Our target is 1412.75 (Daily chart, A=1291.25 on January 30, B=1371.25 on February 29), and so, with the futures currently trading at 1396.00, the trailing stop is 5.75 points. Would you like to learn how we use the ‘camouflage’ trading technique to significantly reduce entry risk? Click here for details.

SIK12 – May Silver (Last:32.170)

– Posted in: Current Touts Rick's Picks

As implied her yesterday, a Hidden Pivot at 31.230 is now our minimum downside objective, and it would take nothing less than an explosive move exceeding 34.380 to the upside to annul that decree. Bottom-fishing is recommended to anyone who can hold risk to $70 or less per contract, presumably via camouflage, but my hunch is that there will be a tradable bounce from within no more than 2.5 cents of the target. You should be aware in any case that a two-day closed beneath 31.230 would put into play the 29.355 target of the pattern shown.  Notice that, unlike the larger downtrending A-B pattern shown in today's charts for April Gold, this one's A-B leg is the real deal -- i.e., not sausage because it exceeded the 32.715 'external' low recorded on February 16.  Indeed, it is because Silver's chart is so clear in this respect that I have given my worst-case forecast for gold the benefit of the small doubt.

GCJ12 – April Gold (Last:1644.50)

– Posted in: Current Touts Rick's Picks

The 1623.00 correction target mentioned in today's commentary is shown in the lower chart, but as you can see, a decisive penetration would put the April contract on course for further weakness to as low as 1588.50. We won't pretend we have a crystal ball that can tell us how this will play out, but we'll have a pretty good handle on how much conviction is behind the selling once we've seen how the futures interact with the two supports identified above. In the upper chart, although the daily bars show gold to be in "dueling" mode, bears hold at least a small edge if we pair bullish and bearish impulse legs recorded since early November.  It must also be noted that the burden of proof for the intermediate-term has been on bulls since November 18.  That is when the futures created a bearish impulse leg without having exceeded to the upside  a small but technically significant peak at 1818.80 that I have labeled #1. Finally, although trading should be from the short side following a decisive breach of either 1623.00 or 1588.50, from a Hidden Pivot perspective the long-term charts do not turn bearish until such time as a downtrending impulse leg takes out the December 29 low at 1526.20 (#2) and the July 1 low at 1487.80 (#3) without an upward b-c correction.

A Suspicious Calm

– Posted in: Free Rick's Picks

Gold and Silver have recovered modestly after being down earlier Wednesday night, but the bounce has been too feeble so far to imply that bulls will have an easy time of it. For night owls, the first camouflage opportunity available in April Gold would come on a b-c pullback from just above 1652.80. You'll need to call up a 60-minute chart to see this.

How High Can the Fed Pile Manure?

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

A U.S. banking system that is being held aloft solely by hot air and brazen lies took an ebullient leap toward November 6 yesterday with the release of an Administration-friendly Fed report declaring most banks sufficiently capitalized to weather severe adversity.  How severe? It’s hard to tell, since there were only passing references in the New York Times to a still-deflating housing market that has helped make The Great Recession and a plummeting standard of living an entrenched fact of life for most Americans, if not for their bankers. And nowhere in the front-page article was there even a word about the Fed’s warehousing of trillions of dollars’ worth of mortgage paper once held by the banks – debt paper that might never recover in value.  Under the circumstances, far from being healthy as the Fed and its shadowy masters would have us believe, the banks are afflicted with the financial equivalent of stage four cancer. Not that anyone on the Street would care to notice. In fact, with this week’s big stock market gains, Wall Street seems to be literally banking on the ability of the spinmeisters to hide the financial system’s deathly pallor with the skill of Sonny Corleone’s mortician. In the meantime, many on the Street, and even a contributor or two in the Rick’s Picks forum, were seeing cloudless skies at least till the election. “Money is going to be pouring into the stock market at the expense of other investments,” noted one forum regular, Gary L. “I now see the possibility of a 20 percent rise in the stock market year over year,” he continued. “If external factors don’t derail this trend, we are in a perfect sunny day lasting perhaps another nine months. This will make Obama’s chances of winning re-election an odds on