Thursday, December 27, 2012

SIH13 – March Silver (Last:30.380)

– Posted in: Current Touts Rick's Picks

Over the last week or so, the futures have bounced feebly off the 29.770 downside target shown.  Because the target was exceeded by four cents, lower lows are likely. Under the circumstances, we should require a robustly bullish impulse leg on the hourly chart before waxing bullish. In practice, this means a rally exceeding at least one internal, and one external, peak on the hourly chart without a b-c correction. In fact, the closest external peak lies at 31.275, fully 85 cents above current levels. Practically speaking, an unbroken rally leg of that magnitude on the hourly chart is extremely unlikely. Stranger things have happened, but for the time being the burden of proof will continue to rest with bulls.

Shorting February Gold My Way

– Posted in: Free Rick's Picks

February Gold looks like a veritable cinder block on the hourly charts.  You could pray for the print at 1677.90 that it would take to turn the hourly chart impulsively bullish, but if you're a man or woman of action, check out the chart accompanying today's tout, since it offers a graphic picture of a 'camouflage' set-up that would be worth shorting. Click here to sample Rick's Picks free for a week.

GCG13 – February Gold (Last:1658.30)

– Posted in: Current Touts Free Rick's Picks

The village idiot wouldn't be fooled by the blatantly distributive quality of Gold's recent price action: three days of tortuous, mincing steps higher to recoup ground that was lost in just a few hours last Thursday. You can watch from the sidelines -- or more aggressively, short this brick on a camo-signal from the lesser charts. As of the moment, it would require an impulse leg exceeding low #1 (1657.30), though not #2 at 1653.00, before we'd take an interest.  If you'd prefer to be bullish, set the snooze alarm for 1677.90, since that's where a bullish impulse leg would be generated on the hourly chart. Click here for information about the upcoming Hidden Pivot Webinar and a $50 discount.

A Grim Reality Lies Beyond Fiscal Cliff

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

[Turns out it was our own Doug Behnfield  -- good friend, astute financial advisor and occasional contributor to Rick’s Picks  -- who in June 2010 coined the term “fiscal cliff.”  Readers may remember his essay, which took its inspiration, metaphorically speaking, from the suicidal ending of the film Thelma and Louise.  In the guest commentary below, with the U.S. a literal inch from the cliff, Doug describes a likely outcome. One thing’s for sure, he notes: No amount of political squabbling will spare us the very real economic pain it will take to bring the national budget into balance. RA] Recently, I was back in Connecticut visiting my mother. She doesn't have a computer and hence, no internet. As a result, I relied on my Smartphone and an "app" to check in on financial news most of the time. On one particular day, I noticed that every single news item contained "Fiscal Cliff" in the title or the text. It reminded me that it is rarely the problem staring us in the face that affects the markets. It is the one lurking in the shadows, grasping a two-by-four. Lately, mainstream economic forecasts for economic growth for the current quarter have dropped below 1%. The recession may have begun. An agreement not to do anything right now on tax increases and spending cuts has probably been priced into the market. A recession has not. I also recalled that I had used the Thelma and Louise analogy some time ago in one of my quarterly commentaries. [Note: It ran here in June 2010 under the title Thoughts on the Great Society.]  Apparently, I was the first one to coin the term, more than a year before Alec Phillips came up with it and almost two years before Ben Bernanke popularized it. "The