June 2012

Something to Do in Silver

– Posted in: Free Rick's Picks

Although yesterday's roller-coaster ride has left me with little gusto today for a roll in the hay with the E-Mini S&Ps, there are actionable touts in both gold and silver, including a bullish play (!) in our favorite mudder, Silver Wheaton.  Check it out if you've been waiting for something promising to happen to this erstwhile glue horse.  And click here if you feel lonely just standing on the sidelines, possibly living a life of quiet desperation. *** Eurospasm! This just in: It is early Friday morning, and index futures are erupting like Vesuvius on news that European leaders have come up with A Modest Plan to recapitalize the banks, saving Italy and Spain from almost certain ruin.  The markets seem not only grateful but relieved,  possibly because Plan 9 supposedly will not add even a dime to public debt.  How will it work?  The answer was not immediately forthcoming. "It's not clear exactly what was agreed, so we still need to see the debate in the second day of the summit," said a spokesman for Mitsui Bank. However uncertain some of the summit delegates may be about Plan 9 (my name for it, recalling the 1950s movie with zippered aliens), the markets are acting as though they are quite sure that something unbelievably cool is about to come down. The E-Mini S&Ps have surged the equivalent of 200 Dow points, beginning and ending the rally in mere minutes as is nearly always the case when stocks move in a big way. Did you catch a ride? That's what we thought. Although we doubt that sundry details yet to be aired will move stocks much higher, it is presumably the absence of such details that has already accomplished the goal of short-squeezing stocks halfway to Venus.  It has also seared

SLW – Silver Wheaton (Last:25.50)

– Posted in: Current Touts Free Rick's Picks

During Wednesday's tutorial session, we discovered a possible buying opportunity in this stock without having looked for it.  I'd suggested using the 25.04 midpoint support shown to get long with a tight stop-loss. However, because the low of yesterday's nasty plunge only came down to 25.15 before the stock rallied out of the hole, it never triggered the screen alert I'd set. Under the circumstances, I'll recommend picking a 'camo' entry spot on the 3-minute chart. The best potential opportunity I can discern would follow a b-c pullback from between two peaks that lie, respectively, at 25.54 (12:15 p.m. EDT) and 25.57 (11:30 a.m.). _______  UPDATE (11:37 a.m. EDT):  Today's surreal rally was over on the first bar, an untradable gap-up opening to 26.84. We did nothing. You can learn how to do this stuff yourself, and it’s not that hard!   Click here if you’re ready to look at charts — and managing the risk of a trade — in a radical new way.

ESU12 – September E-Mini S&P (Last:1319.00)

– Posted in: Current Touts Rick's Picks

The near-term picture remains bearish despite yesterday's short-squeeze hysteria in the final hour. This is explained by the pattern shown. It has left us with precious little in the way of opportunity, so we'll plan on watching from the sidelines today as another week draws to a close. _______ UPDATE (11:14 a.m. EDT):  The futures wafted steadily higher during the night, effectively adding a C-D follow-through to the short-squeeze rally begun on the "news" from Europe.  The so-far high at 1350.50 has fallen within a single tick of the 1350.75 target of this in-your-face pattern on the 3-minute chart: A=1320.00 (10:50 p.m. on 6/28); B=1338.75 (at 11:05); and C=1332 at 11:10.

SIN12 – July Silver (Last:26.245)

– Posted in: Current Touts Rick's Picks

It's back to reality following yesterday's contrarian, benefit-of-the-doubt tout. Reality in this case takes the form of two Hidden Pivots shown in the 240-minute chart (inset).  The downside target of the larger pattern is 25.230, and it is probably magnetic by now.  Just above it sits the 25.505 target of the lesser pattern, and if it is breached the fall to the lower number would likely be swift.  Bottom-fish at either number if you are able to limit theoretical risk to $70 or less per contract, presumably via camouflage. If any fills are reported in the chat room, I'll establish a tracking position for your further guidance.

GCQ12 – August Gold (Last:1597.10)

– Posted in: Current Touts Rick's Picks

Gold once again showed itself able to move in lock-step with stocks -- as long as stocks are falling, that is.  Nor should anyone have been surprised that the totally orchestrated swoon that took the Dow Industrials down nearly 180 points on Obamacare news did not impact bullion when it came time to bring stocks back up to re-set levels.  As a result, the downside target at 1497.40 given here earlier remains compelling if not to say unavoidable.  Camouflageurs looking for a good place to get short should note that the 1569.90 midpoint support of the pattern has now become resistance. Alternatively, the futures would need to hit 1589.90 this week for the bull to emerge from coma.  _______ UPDATE (12:24):  Not to rain on your parade, but what I notice about this rally on the hourly chart is that it has failed by a few dimes to get past the first of a series of minor external peaks (i.e. 1602.00) "along the wall" of the June 20-21 cascade.  Feel encouraged by the showmanship of today's upsurge if you wish, but I'm just sayin'...

Why Bear Markets Are So Hard to Short

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

Recall that a little more than a week ago, in a headline atop one of these commentaries, we invited you to “Join Us as We Short Every Stupid Rally.” And why not?  Stocks are probably in a bear market now, and making money on the short side should be as easy as stringing beads, right? Well, not exactly.  In the several years that have passed since we last experienced a full-blown bear, we’d forgotten how devious he can be. Expecting the worst, we somehow still put out advice to Rick’s Picks subscribers Wednesday night that had them looking for a last-gasp rally to get short. We even gave them a go-ahead to get long cautiously, based on a buy signal in the E-Mini S&Ps that had been triggered a day earlier. When stocks opened Thursday morning, however, what we saw instead was a 170-point collapse in the Dow on news that the Supreme Court had upheld Obamacare.  The funny thing is, even bears who stuck to their guns could have lost money, since stocks came roaring back in the final hour. Of course, all of this was stage-managed by institutional traders who make their living stealing from widows and pensioners, front-running their own customers and deftly exploiting fear and panic that they themselves have helped to incite. In this case, They pulled the rug at the opening, even knowing that the Supreme Court’s ruling seems likely to whip anti-Obama sentiment into a frenzy, sparing us four more years of the most rabidly anti-business President in U.S. history. Investors seem to have figured this out for themselves, and by day’s end they'd pushed the Dow back to nearly even at the bell. For DaBoyz, meanwhile, exploiting the 350-point swoon was all in a day’s work. Too, Too Scary So where does

The Silver Lining

– Posted in: Free Links Rick's Picks

A stock market plummeting in despair Thursday, at least initially, seems to have taken the Supreme Court's dumbfounding approval of Obamacare the wrong way; for in fact, it all but guarantees that Obama, the most incompetent, Big Government-mongering President  since Roosevelt, will be turned out of office in November -- and by a wider margin than we might have predicted just a day ago.  From this point forward in the campaign, he will not be able to evade the charge that he has enacted the largest middle-class tax increase in U.S. history -- at a time when the economy remains intractably mired in what has come to be called, somewhat evasively with respect to its beginning and end, The Great Recession. The court's decision will also serve to remind angry voters that, even though Democrats and Republicans  are equally responsible for the financial mess the country is in, the two parties pick very different kinds of Supreme Court Justices. And if Obama should be allowed to put one more humorless, leftist ideologue like Kagan or Sotomayor on the court, we might as well all flee to Canada. A further benefit of the Supremes' upholding The Worst Bill Ever is that it will give Obama's weakling-of-an-opponent, Mitt Romney -- the news media's very deliberate choice, although not the people's -- something, finally, to talk about.

Inflation, Deflation, the Euro and Student Loans (via MaxKeiser.com)

– Posted in: Links

Rick appeared on The Keiser Report yesterday in a wide-ranging interview that covered inflation/deflation, the Euro crisis and student loans. The video and transcript of the interview are shown below. (If watching the video, Rick's segment begins at 13:00). Max Keiser: Welcome back to the Keiser Report. I’m Max Keiser. Time now to go to Rick Ackerman of Rick’s Picks newsletter. Rick, welcome to the Keiser Report. Rick Ackerman: Hey Max. How you doing? Max: Fantastic. Rick Ackerman, tell us, what happened to all the hyperinflationists? Rick: I think they’ve been pretty quiet lately, Max. We have nothing but a deflationary juggernaut unfolding in Europe. Austerity may have been voted thumbs down, but you don’t see any infusions of new credit making their way into the system. It seems like everything that’s happening in Europe right now has a deflationary outcome. Max: Right. The ravages of the credit peak of 2007 continue to wreak all kinds of damage around the world. No matter what the central banks try to do to stop it, the deflationary pressures continue to mount. What do you tell people when they say, “Well, look at the price of medical costs and look at the price of student loans, these are rising in price.” How does that factor into or square against this deflationary trend? Rick: Well, I call that lettuce bin inflation, Max. Compared to the larger deflationary picture - which is an asset deflation - the grocery store inflation is relatively tame. Even that’s going to hit a wall, because the money that you spend on groceries has to come from something else if the price of groceries goes up, because real incomes are stagnant. So it’s really sort of a closed loop. And if the price of one thing goes up, it means

SIN12 – July Silver (Last:26.940)

– Posted in: Current Touts Free Rick's Picks

If, implausibly, Hollywood were to somehow turn a commodity chart into a cliffhanger movie, Silver's weekly chart is the one the focus groups would all agree on (see inset).  Even to the untrained eye, the July contract looks like it cannot possibly go anywhere but down. And that is why I am going to focus today on the upside:  what it would take to put some bullish energy into this vehicle.  Specifically, on the 15-minute chart, a print is needed that exceeds the  27.295 'external' that I've highlighted.  And now, we wait.  (You can learn how to do this stuff yourself, and it's not that hard!   Click here if you're ready to look at charts -- and managing the risk of a trade -- in a radical new way.)

GCQ12 – August Gold (Last:1577.30)

– Posted in: Current Touts Rick's Picks

Yesterday's gratuitous ups and down did nothing to alter the tout given here yesterday, as follows: The weekly chart shows clearly what bulls are up against, the August contract having already signaled a short to 1497.40,  or to 1470.80 if any lower. Alternatively, it would take nothing less than an uncorrected rally to 1674.40 for the Good Guys to go back on the offensive.