Tuesday, November 27, 2012

We recently logged a theoretical gain of $3000 in this stock by catching a tradable low very precisely and riding it until an exit was signaled using an impulse-leg stop-loss. Let's try to do it again using the pattern shown. I'll signal when to buy if an enticing entry opportunity presents itself following an impulsive thrust on the hourly chart.  I prefer trading shares rather than options in this case because spread-trading puts and calls on a $600 stock is much hairier than simply buying the stock outright with a penny-ante stop-loss.  If you want to receive trading alerts in real time, be sure to check 'E-Mail Notifications' on your 'My Account' page.  It’s easier than you might imagine to out-forecast gurus who do it for a living. Click here for a free trial subscription that can start you on the road to making your own trading and investment decisions.

The chart shows what the futures would have to do to turn currently "dueling" impulse legs in bulls' favor.  It is the equivalent of an uncorrected DJIA rally of about 200 points, so buyers will have their work cut out for them, even with seasonality heavily in their favor (December is the second most bullish month of the year, historically speaking.) Meanwhile, the best opportunity to bottom-fish a pullback would be on a drop to the 'p' midpoint shown. Please note that its location could change if a higher point 'C' is created.

Apple shares recovered some of their old mojo with last week’s 10% rally, lending buoyancy to a market that was already pumped full of helium for Wall Street’s traditional observance of the Thanksgiving holiday. Nearly all of the stock’s gains came on a gap-up opening last Monday, but it is important to note that AAPL held onto those gains, consolidating over several days for, presumably, yet another burst in the week ahead.  Our immediate target is 580.92, which would represent a gain of $10 over Friday’s closing price. However, if buyers are able to push even slightly past that price target, they’d become an odds-on bet to continue to the next, at least, at 607.25. Both numbers are derived from our proprietary method, Hidden Pivot Analysis, and they leave us somewhat upbeat about the holiday shopping season.  Although we’re not expecting any sales records to be broken, business should be upbeat if Apple and a couple of other retail bellwethers merely maintain the status quo. One of those bellwethers is Fedex, a stock we watch closely for clues about the actual state of the economy. Five weeks ago, FDX’s charts looked so strong that we inferred that the U.S. would finish the year on a strong upswing.  However, in the weeks since, FDX has receded somewhat, suggesting that business will continue at a moderate pace, at least through December. Bullish on Facebook In the meantime, we hold bullish tracking positions in Google (just exited) and Facebook.  The former was initiated on a purely technical signal -- a “Hidden Pivot” correction target that worked very precisely.  In Facebook, the recommendation was based not on technical factors alone, but also on a gut feeling that the company has finally come up with a great new way to make money. We had been

I recently attended the Hard Asset Conference in San Francisco.  The meeting concluded with a panel discussion that featured Rick Rule, Paul Van Eeden, Ian McAvity, James Dines, Jay Taylor and Adrian Day.  Two of them named as their top mining-sector pick the same company, a firm that is focused on prospect generation and the creation and acquistion of royalties and investments.  For the identity of this company, along with some timely Hidden Pivot analysis of its shares, drop by the chat room and check out my posts from November 26, starting at 17:57. (Don't subscribe? Click here for a free trial that will allow you to join the chat room discussion for a week and to access trading 'touts' behind the subscriber wall.) I'll also mention a James Dines recommendation that surprised me: Bank of America (BAC).  I rolled my eyes when he mentioned this one, but when I looked at BAC's daily chart for the first time in months, I realized that Dines is clearly onto something. BAC is currently trading for around 9.84, but it will be an odds-on bet to reach 15.90 once it has exceeded a Hidden Pivot 'midpoint resistance' at 11.31.