Tuesday, April 8, 2014

HUI – Gold Bugs Index (Last:226.26)

– Posted in: Current Touts Rick's Picks

The Gold Bugs Index has shown a little more pluck than the futures lately, holding its own for the last two days after notching a promising impulse leg with last Friday's gap-up opening.  Now, unless sellers push this vehicle below 222.70, we should anticipate a new burst of strength to as high as the 232.46 target shown. A close above the 228.47 midpoint pivot with which it is associated would make a follow-through to the target an odds-on bet.

NQM14 – June E-Mini Nasdaq (Last:3525.50)

– Posted in: Current Touts Rick's Picks

Clear targets (i.e., one labeled D=3491.00 in the chart) are getting whacked, implying there's more selling to come. If so, use the 3463.25 target of the ABC pattern shown as a minimum downside target.  That's a midpoint Hidden Pivot, and if it's breached decisively, expect the selling to continue to its 3384.00 'D' sibling, at least.  Note that a lower B-C pairing yields even lower targets at, respectively, 3429.00 and 3337.50.  As always, a significant breach of one will imply more downside to the next. _______ UPDATE (12:03 p.m. ET): Bears are just shy of getting impaled by today's moderate short squeeze, and the downside targets would be invalidated by a print at 3543.00, a mere 7 points above the so-far intraday high.  My hunch is that this rally won't get very far, but I will short it only at a very promising p or D pivot.

GCM14 – June Gold (Last:1300.30)

– Posted in: Current Touts Rick's Picks

Gold is once again fully under the sway of the broad averages, and so we shouldn't presume that it will somehow buck the trend if the stock-market carnage of the last two days continues (or, heaven forbid, intensifies). Another sobering point to consider is that Friday's 1307.50 peak turned chicken a measly tick shy of impulsiveness.  Despite this, if buyers surprise this morning and get second wind, surmounting midpoint resistance at 1306.20, look for a push to at least 1316.50, or to 1321.20 if any higher.

ESM14 – June E-Mini S&P (Last:1845.00)

– Posted in: Current Touts Rick's Picks

The night shift, which attracts some of the most talented dirtballs in the trading world, is having trouble walking the futures higher Monday night. So far, a 4.00-point mark-up is all they've been able to extort from widows, orphans and pensioners who evidently still don't know that the broad averages have gotten pounded for two straight days. More seriously, in fact, it is short-covering that is providing the lift right now, and if bears don't know enough to stay cool and back off, they deserve to get buried by the next avalanche.  This is all speculative on my part, mind you, but notice how little selling it would take to generate a robustly bearish impulse leg on the daily chart (see inset).  Price action could therefore turn very erratic between now and Tuesday's opening bell, but please note: This is when you can flourish if you apply the simple rules of 'camouflage' in looking for tradable impulse legs amidst the flux of fear and hysteria.  Accordingly, I'll suggest monitoring the hourly chart and trading on the 3-minute, if and when any of the key lows that I've flagged is breached. _______ UPDATE (12:07 p.m. ET): DaBoyz have popped the futures for a so-far 16-point short squeeze off a deftly engineered, spike low.  The result is a robustly bullish impulse leg on the hourly chart that could yield a trade from the long side (A=1830.75; B=not yet formed).

The Mother of All Bull Traps?

– Posted in: Free Rick's Picks

I'm on the record -- more than once -- with a prediction that the broad averages would plummet only after springing a nasty bull trap from record-high levels. But is that in fact what has happened? I can't tell, at least not yet. What I had originally envisioned was that the Dow and S&P Index would climb at least 150-200 points above the old highs; that everyone and his mother would turn hell-of-bullish; and that the resulting hubris would reach a deafening pitch. Instead, the broad averages recorded merely marginal new record highs last Friday on the opening bar; then they began to fall at a pitch that could easily steepen into something scary this week. Not only was there precious little hubris when this fleeting peak was recorded, there was outright skepticism. That's because the short-squeeze that caused it was triggered by payroll data that everyone except the financial press knew to be worthless at best, a fraud at worst. Small wonder, then, that the report of 192,000 new McJobs added to the allegedly recovering economy generated a froth that lasted for all of ten minutes. Wetting Their Pants Was that it!? If so, and the stock market's decline picks up steam in the days ahead, investors could find themselves wetting their pants by the time the closing bell sounds on Friday. I say this because if U.S. stocks have indeed entered a bear market, the jig will be up for the economic spinmeisters:  their "recovery" hoax will be laid bare, The Great Recession will return with a vengeance literally overnight, and the dam will burst for economic problems that have been held at bay, albeit barely, by op-ed cheerleaders and the credulous, smile-button idiots who package the news. Because EVERYTHING we pray for, economically speaking, has been riding