December Crude fell yesterday to a hidden-pivot target at 59.43 first broached here two weeks ago, allowing us to get long with the very tight (i.e., 59.18) stop-loss that had been suggested. The actual low was 59.31, but it’s too early to tell whether it will mark a major turning point. I had raised that possibility last week in response to apparent consensus expectations that oil prices have peaked for the long-term. Perhaps, but I’m not so sure. We don’t need to guess about it, though, since price action at the hidden pivot will continue to tell us everything we need to know. So far, we can infer that the correction begun in late August from 71.57 is still in force, but that it has been interrupted in normal fashion by a hidden-pivot support. Still, we shouldn’t be too hasty in assuming this rally has nowhere to go.

(Click on chart to enlarge)

Whatever our expectations, the nearly $700 some subscribers will have made so far on paper should help ease any anxieties about the future direction of oil prices. It will also more than offset the two-tick loss (i.e., $25) we weathered in the mini-S&P attempting to short a hidden-pivot resistance at 1196.25. The recommendation was not disseminated to subscribers, but rather to a futures broker that has been compiling a track record for Rick’s Picks, pursuant to setting up an auto-trade service using my hidden-pivot swing points. However, I did make note of the trade intraday via a bulletin to subscribers, speculating that the triggering of a super-tight stop-loss would beget still higher prices. And so it did, albeit in unspectacular fashion. I left you with a 1204.25 target, but the futures were not quite able to reach that hidden pivot intraday, topping at 1203.25. The target remains viable nonetheless, but its value as a place where we might attempt to get short will have been largely negated by early evening.      

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‘Lurker’ a Dirty Word?

I sometimes chide lurkers gently in hopes they’ll pay to see what’s inside Rick’s Picks. How can they resist?  For less than the cost of a shave and a haircut, subscribers receive a full month’s worth of preternaturally accurate swing points and detailed trading recommendations, as well as a ringside seat at Wednesday morning’s regular Q&A session. Sounds like a deal too good to pass up, right? Apparently not; for, what am I to make of the note I received from Selwyn S., an apparent “off-site fan” of the service who bridles at the very use of the term “lurker”?         

“You publish on a public website,” he writes. “It is insulting, unfair, and beneath a man of your intelligence and insight to call readers of your publicly published works ‘lurkers.’  ‘Lurk’ is a pejorative word, suggesting an evil purpose. You are a very disciplined and unemotional analyst. Do you think this comment of mine is fair?”

A Guru Hits Bottom

Not at all, Selwyn – and no sulking, now! If I really thought ill of lurkers, there are many other words I could have used that sound a lot worse. How about sponger? Freeloader? Parasite… scrounger… hanger-on… deadbeat… leech… sucker… barnacle… cheapskate… tightwad?  I’m not ashamed to tell you that it was a poison-penned lurker who got me fired from my last job, a position so execrable that I would not have wished it on my worst enemy.  I was forced to take the job when the fruits of self-employment temporarily dried up after I moved from California to Colorado. It involved putting out forecasts and commentary daily, which information was given away free to subscribers.

To return to the saga of the poison pen, the lurker’s initial notes to me were friendly in a butt-kissing kind of way. But they turned uglier and uglier after I politely let him know that he was becoming a bit of a pest. He persisted, though, his messages to me becoming increasingly hostile and strident over a period of many months. My response was always the same: You receive my comments, forecasts and recommendations for free. If you don’t like them, why not simply cancel your subscription?

Incredibly, his notes to me grew even nastier and more frequent. Finally, after about a year-and-a-half of this, I told the guy where to get off, mentioning that at least four people who had crossed me in the past had met with extraordinary adversity and/or death at some point thereafter. (Absolutely and verifiably true, though not because I had wished it; for, most assuredly, I had not.) Anyway, the guy ratted me out to my then boss, who didn’t know quite what to make of my “voodoo threat,”other than to make it a firing offense. In retrospect, this was one of the most fortuitous events in my otherwise happily self-employed career. Of course, I am grateful to the lurker for the role he played as a catalyst. And, for the record, my note to the lurker wasn’t a threat, just an expression of deep concern about karmic forces over which, presumably, he had more control than I.   

How Badly I Suck…

It has always puzzled me that I’ve received excoriating notes occasionally from lurkers but never one from a paying subscriber. You would think it would be easy enough for those who say they hate Rick’s Picks to simply stop reading the free commentary I put out on the Web. Alas, they can’t seem to get enough of it – enough of my “horrendous” forecasts and “atrocious, amateurish” writing, each new supposed example of which gives them yet one more opportunity to tell me how badly I suck. Fortunately, there have been only three or four of these guys in the ten years I’ve published a trading advisory. I’m pretty sure one or two of them have subscribed to my current service using aliases, the better to ascertain whether my hidden pivots are as inaccurate and as useless as ever.

Fortunately, Selwyn, you are not one of the “bad” lurkers -- just a guy, evidently, with thin skin and too much time on his hands. I hope I haven’t discouraged you from taking a no-risk, 15-day trial. Come see what you’ve been missing! I’ve just put out precise targets for Google, crude oil and a few other investables that I warrant are worth your serious attention – not to mention, your hard-earned discretionary dollars.