Monday, March 18, 2013

GCJ13 – April Gold (Last:1596.30)

– Posted in: Current Touts Rick's Picks

Gold is up just $4 Sunday night after an initial headless-chicken gyration of $18. I read the action as mildly bullish, an attempt by DaBoyz to accumulate some inventory before they grudgingly allow the news from Cyprus to push bullion at least somewhat higher. They are being cautious perhaps because gold will be punished badly if stocks should surprise by finishing the day unchanged-to-higher.

ESM13 – June E-Mini S&P (Last:1546.50)

– Posted in: Current Touts Free Rick's Picks

Amazing!  Nothing....NOTHING seems to spook this market. I was looking for a 30-point gap-down opening in the E-Mini S&P Sunday night, but the Sleazeballs who control it needed only an 11-point discount from Friday's settlement to put out what they must have felt was a larcenous bid. Granted, it has taken a further markdown of 11 points to carve out a tentative low at 1531.00, but even at that price the Dow would open only 180 points lower on Monday. It feels to me like DaSleazeballs view the ostensibly scary news from Cyprus as a shakedown opportunity.  Or perhaps index futures are down only modestly because the only players left in the game are other shakedown artists? In any case, the selloff so far is bearishly impulsive on all charts up to and including the daily, but we won't know if there is real fear behind it until we've seen an upward correction and downside follow-through attempt.  If it turns higher from the C-D midpoint (see inset), however, that will be good evidence that DaBoyz are capable of taking the news from Cyprus easily in stride.  ______ UPDATE (10:29 a.m. EDT):  The analysis above got it precisely right, since the futures have been moving relentlessly higher since 2 a.m., recouping about 70% of their losses following an overnight low of 1529.50. It seems a foregone conclusion at this point that any follow-through selling will be reversed from p or higher.  A further possibility is that there will be no c-d downleg, only a rally from last night's criminally engineered low that keeps on going...and going...and going.

Gold’s Return as Safe Haven?

– Posted in: Free Rick's Picks

Sellers had dollar bulls on the run Friday, but the weekend story concerning Cyprus' banking problems could quickly turn things around.  Check out today's Dollar Index tout to see where the rally would become unstoppable.  Were this to occur, the ostensibly bearish implications for gold could be mitigated if the flight-to-safety panic is serious enough to revive bullion's safe-haven status.  Reminder to traders:  We have an open order in DIA that seeks to roll the recently expired short side of our June 130 - March 130 put spread into April.  Our 0.40 offer for the April 130 puts could be in play if a Cyprus-induced panic hits U.S. markets today. Click here to sample Rick's Picks free for a week.

DXY – NYBOT Dollar Index (Last:82.14)

– Posted in: Current Touts Free Rick's Picks

The bullish trend swung to a 'duel' between bulls and bears Friday with the creation of the bearish impulse leg I've highlighted in red. My hunch is that the news from Cyprus will arrest the selloff via a resumption of the dominant uptrend. If you're looking to catch a ride, I'd suggest leveraging camouflage opportunities to be found at 'x' on charts of 15-minute degree or less.  If the next stab takes out the labeled peak at 83.51, bulls will gain locomotive force. ________ UPDATE (March 25):  The vicious chop of the last two weeks looks to be a consolidation for a test of August's highs near 84. Any impulsive thrust that clears August 2's 83.51 peak will imply that bulls are likely to surpass those highs without much trouble.

Tiny Cyprus Re-Opens Europe’s Can of Worms

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

“What rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? With the Dow Industrials trading at record heights last week, Wall Street and its news-media shills boldly ratcheted up the hubris to levels unseen since the dot-com bubble popped exactly 13 years ago.  All news is good news these days, it would seem -- especially fraudulent employment data spun to suggest that boom times are about to return to the U.S.  As far as we’re concerned, however, the real news is in Cyprus, where the latest eurobank bailout perfectly describes the sort of seemingly minor trouble that could cause the global financial system to implode overnight.  Will Cyprus’ banking problems prove to be the black swan that author Nassim Taleb famously described?  Unfortunately, for reasons Taleb took pains to explain, we won’t know the answer until it’s too late.  But it’s hardly inconceivable that this measly €13 billion bailout could trigger a sequence of events with global implications. On the surface, it’s hard to see what could be even remotely troubling about the sight of nervous depositors queueing outside the Bank of Cyprus. As far as investors in the U.S. are concerned, the depositors might as well be Yap Islanders trying to exchange paper receipts for stone money. Trouble is, Cyprus is a major haven for the untold loot of Russian tycoons. And while it’s one thing for Cypriot riff-raff to get skittish about the safety of their nest eggs, the Russian oligarchs are another matter. Were a whiff of fear to hit their sensitive nostrils, deposits they’ve stashed all over Europe would scurry for safety elsewhere, presumably into U.S. Treasury paper and – wouldn’t this be a novel turn of events? – gold. Jeopardy for Depositors They have good reason to be skittish, since