Monday, April 29, 2013

The rally has generated a modest impulse leg on the hourly chart, although not yet the buy signal that would come at 281.55.  The burden of proof will remain on bulls until they can close this vehicle above a midpoint resistance on the 60-minute, at least. At the moment, that implies 280.13, but that's only if the 273.98 point 'C' associated with that number survives.

Take your pick of several downtrending abc's.  If the futures do in fact head lower, my choice is the one shown, with a 1567.75 target. You can try bottom-fishing there, one contract, stop 1566.75; or four contracts if you use camouflage that limits your theoretical loss to no more than 3-4 ticks per contract.  Please note that the 1574.50 midpoint support has already been breached as of late Sunday night.  Alternatively, if buyers come out swinging, there's a veritable forest of 'external' peaks you can use to find a subtle entry opportunity unlike;y to be perceived as a breakout by the competition.

There are some unfulfilled targets not far above Friday's 1485 high, but the futures appear to be struggling hard for those last few yards. Rather than navel-gaze the meaning of it all, we elected to bail out of a long position on Friday, based on a stop-loss at 1470.30. Traders who followed my advice exactly would have come away with a one-day gain of about $4300.  There will always be another opportunity to re-board, of course, but because a top of at least short-term significance seems almost guaranteed just above 1500 if the futures get second wind, we shouldn't be too desperate to re-establish a long position from these levels. Specifically, there are resistance points, previously noted here, in the form of a Hidden Pivot target at 1507.20, as well as a Fibonacci-based level at 1505.00 that would equate to a 0.618 retracement of the downdraft begun in late March from 1618.  An additional resistance not mentioned earlier lies at around 1583 (see inset), where a trendline we'd been using earlier, and whose breach in February foretold gold's recent troubles, comes in. _______ UPDATE (April 29, 11:50 p.m. EDT):  Camouflageurs can use the 1495.00 'external' peak I've highlighted (inset, a new chart) to get long, although more immediately there are three others that could prove equally serviceable provided the impulse leg that exceeds them is not too obvious. The rally targets given above will obtain nonetheless, but odds would still favor bulls for the very short-term. ________ UPDATE (April 30, 9:26 a.m. EDT): This morning's bull trap implies that the bounce from mid-April's grossly oversold lows is sputtering out. The manifestly fraudulent, distributive rally was sprung at 4 a.m., and although it took out two prior peaks without a pause to create a promising camo set-up, the trade that resulted