Let’s you and I wake up this morning and break some mirrors, just to show the Karma who’s boss, okay? We’ll lean ladders against our houses and exercise beneath them at hourly intervals. And keep salt shakers at our desks to freshen the luck o’ the devil. And spray-paint our cats black, just to screw with our neighbors’ heads. And then, we’ll place our bets.

But first the bad news: When the opening bell sounds Friday morning, the most promising bet we could make will be the “Don’t Pass” line in gold. Yesterday’s defenestration of bullion and mining shares caused certain vehicles that we track to transform what might have been a exhilarating turnaround day into a bloody rout. Specifically, the HUI “Gold Bugs Index” exceeded an important  hidden pivot 172.69 by 1.15 points, and June Comex gold exceeded an analogous downside target at 421.40 by 60 cents. That might not sound like much, but in hidden-pivote-ese it amounts to wholesale carnage.

 (Click on image for good luck)

The fact that neither hidden-pivot support evinced even the slightest presence of strong hands implies that bullion quotes are almost certainly fated to continue lower. The good news is that June Gold will have another chance to turn around not terribly far below Thursday’s bottom. In fact, the prospect looks sufficiently promising that I’ve provided a strategy in today’s Rick’s Picks designed to help you try bottom-fishing next week with a stop-loss of less than a single point.

The pivot is about as confidence-inspiring as they get, and so has the potential to provide us with a rare trading opportunity in a favorite vehicle. The support looks like it will work very precisely, meaning that any over- or undershoot should amount to no more than two or three ticks, tops. But keep in mind that if the pivot is breached more than slightly, that would be a clear warning that gold is on its way down to a test of all-too-obvious support near $400.