Friday proved to be a triple-witching dud, the broad averages having shown no pluck at all following their whoopee cushion rally a day earlier. Still, by next Wednesday it could look like a one-day pause in a short-squeeze that has yet to play out. Fortunately, even without much price movement we were able able to make some position adjustments that have pared risk in some of the stocks we hold. For starters we sold for 26.92 half of the Goldcorp shares we’d acquired for 26.04, reducing our a cost basis to 25.16 for what remains. When I issued the sell recommendation intraday via the bulletin launcher, I advised you not to look back: “The stock looks like it could move higher, possibly even reaching the target before the session ends, but we are selling some shares at this level nonetheless, because, as the old saying goes, no one ever went broke taking a profit.”

As it happened, Goldcorp was getting second wind, staging for a push to an intraday high of 27.38, where it settled at the close. The rally is encouraging, for sure, but Goldcorp will still need to push up to at least 28.73 by early next week to create a minor impulse leg robust enpugh to sustain the stock’s nascent, bullish momentum.

Smooth JetBlue Flight

We also took some partial profits in JetBlue, which we’d held with a costs basis of 8.64. After selling another hundred shares of it yesterday 10 cents below the intraday high, the cost basis for the round lot we still own is 5.40. JBLU ended the week at 11.58 after peaking intraday at 11.98. We also had a few short offers out -- in the Mini-Dow, Beazer Homes and the Mini-S&P. All of these vehicles head-faked on the opening to within easy distance of our offers, but none quite made it all the way. Assuming stocks get another short-squeeze goosing next week, as I expect, we could be gifted with an even better opportunity to get short ahead of the next leg down.

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Gold’s Correction

My friend Larry Amernick, editor of The Amernick Letter, has just published a technical report on Gold that asserts the correction still has a ways to go. His outlook for the intermediate term is somewhat more bearish than mine, with precise targets that come from Standard Error Bands rather than hidden pivots. This is a must-read, so watch for instructions on how to retrieve the report in the Intraday Notes section of Rick’s Picks over the weekend.

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Learn My Secrets

Would you like to be able to forecast trends and price reversals as accurately and confidently as Rick’s Picks? Have you tried other trading systems, only to find them too complicated or otherwise unhelpful? Then don’t miss my Hidden Pivot Seminar this autumn in New York City. Plans are firming for a weekend session on October 14-15, so please let me know via e-mail if you think you might attend.

There will be just one more U.S. seminar offered after that, on the West Coast; and another in Sydney, Australia, but they will likely be the last for a long while. The course includes post-grad mentoring via a chat group that some of my former students have set up. If you’ve been impressed with the accuracy of my forecasts, this is an opportunity you cannot afford to pass up. Let me hear from you soon, since the New York seminar is within a few seats of being sold out.