ARCHIVED COMMENTARY
Larry King, Thanks
For Taking My Call
For edition of August 14, 2006
I spent Friday in transit, catching the news at-at-a-glance in airport lounges between Denver and San Francisco. Anticipating long security lines at DIA, I got to the airport nearly three hours before my 9:30 a.m. flight, only to discover that check-in lines were practically non-existent. The flight stopped in L.A., and although I was told later that it had been a madhouse there, much as it always is, I did my layover in the relatively quiet American Airlines lounge. So much for the latest bomb scare. The worst part of the trip was a reservation screw-up at the Hertz counter. Usually I wind up with a free upgrade when it’s their error. This time, though, much to the disappointment of my two sons, there were no sporty upgrades on the lot – no Hummers, Mustang convertibles or Jags – just a humdrum Toyota. The good news is that I’ve been driving it all over the Bay Area for two days and still have about three-quarters of a tank left.
I’m in a café on Balboa Street at the moment, patched into a neightbohood wireless network that miraculously is allowing me to access TradeStation charts. The application can be pretty finicky about security settings, but I’ve thrown caution to the wind, opening a portal into Rick’s Picks and Tradestation that is probably accessible to anyone within a 200-foot radius. With little knowledge about what happened in the world of news on Friday, I would surmise that the stock market took the day’s events in stride. The Dow Industrials recorded an intraday low just five points above a minor hidden-pivot support at 11067, and if it’s breached on Monday morning you can expect the decline to continue to at least 10959, give or take the usual couple of points.
Because the stock market has taken bad news with such disdainful aplomb lately, we should probably expect the impending cease-fire in Lebanon to send shares wafting higher. It surely couldn’t hurt the collective psyche that an alert Wal-Mart clerk called the police when three guys tried to buy 80 cell phones at a store in Dallas. More such homespun vigilance is going to make all the difference as we attempt to limit terrorism’s reach with in the U.S. On this issue, I am on the opposite side of the fence from my sister, a San Francisco atttorney who specializes in privacy law. I say, if it helps to catch terrorists, then by all means tap my phone, scrutinize my library record – hell, you can even arrest me at the airport merely for looking swarthy. What have I to fear so long as I get to make that one phone call when I’m taken in and booked? “Yes, that’s right. My name is Rick Ackerman, and I’d like to talk to Larry King.”
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San Francisco Seminar
I’ll be in San Francisco next week, finalizing plans for the upcoming Hidden Pivot Seminar. A specific date has not yet been set, but it now looks like the two-day class will be held in mid-November. If you’re interested and haven’t contacted me yet, please let me know via-email . Is this seminar for you? Here’s a prospectus so that you can decide for yourself:
Trust Yourself,
Not Some Guru
Would you like to be able to forecast trends and price swings so accurately that you’ll never again have to seek advice from the supposed experts? That is the goal of the Hidden-Pivot Seminar: to teach you to read the markets so confidently that you will come to trust your own judgment over that of gurus who forecast for a living.
My proprietary Hidden-Pivot Method derives from a few simple principles that I’ve developed and honed over the last twelve years. It is the simplest and most powerful method I have ever found for predicting trends and price swings accurately and with complete confidence. Moreover, it works in any time frame and for virtually all types of securities, including stocks, indexes, commodities and options.
Inhale…Exhale
The system is based on the theory that stocks and commodities are constantly trying to balance yin and yang energy as they move around. Their ups and downs are analogous to breathing in and breathing out, and in the end these complementary actions must offset each other precisely. The trick to understanding how the process works in the securities markets is to visually match up trend segments that are part of ABCD patterns on charts.
Consider as an example the chart of eBay below. The key number is 28.89, the presumptive D target of a pattern defined by points A, B and C. The target is what I call a “hidden pivot,” and it is calculated by subtracting the length of the A-B segment (3.90) from point C. In the example, the resulting value is 28.89, a mere two cents from where eBay actually turned. In retrospect, we see that this would have been an excellent spot to buy the stock using a stop-loss as tight as a nickel. It also would have provided a precise target to enable disciplined short-covering.
A Simple Trick
The visual trick to identifying these patterns is really no trick at all. You simply find the B-C leg first, then move backwards to locate A. Those three price points are all you will need to calculate a D target. Note that the B-C leg is simply any countertrend move that looks like it might eventually be the axis of symmetry dividing an AB impulse leg from a CD follow-through leg.
That’s all there is to it. Since the system is based entirely on price action, you won’t ever have to consider trading volume, oscillators, channels, MACDs, trendlines or any of the other conventional indicators that most technicians use. And with just one more trick, you will be capable of forecasting as accurately as those who do it for a living. You need only locate the exact midpoint of the B-C segment’s second leg. Once you are able to find this specially endowed hidden pivot – a simple task for the trained eye – you will never again need an “expert” to tell you what a stock, index or commodity is likely to do next.
The Hidden Pivot Seminar is held over two days, during which time you will learn how to spot the most promising ABCD patterns. You will also learn, in under 20 minutes, a surprisingly easy way to use stochastic indicators and other oscillators to enhance your timing. Finally, you will learn how to use hidden pivots to manage risk so that you will always know exactly when to cut losses and when to let profits run.
Free Mentoring
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An important feature of the seminar, at no extra cost, is post-grad mentoring in a hidden-pivot chat room set up by some of my students. Here is what one of them, Hunter Reynolds, recently had to say: "We have all come a long way. I think everyone here is making a little $$, or we would be doing something else by now. I can honestly say I am up about ten percent, maybe a little more, since your class. I am pretty conservative. I just trade from the long side, but I'm getting really good at picking the hidden-pivot reversal points for the uptrend!"
I should tell you that seminar grads who frequent the chat room are coming to understand my method as well as I do. Indeed, some have adapted what they learned in highly effective ways that I could not have foreseen. Buttressed by the continuing lessons of the chat-room, the Hidden Pivot Seminar offers an opportunity to acquire powerful analytical tools that will serve you for a lifetime.
A Student’s Experience
Here is what one of my grads, Hunter Reynolds, had to say recently about the chat room:
"We have all come a long way. I think everyone here is making a little $$, or we would be doing something else by now. I can honestly say I am up about ten percent, maybe a little more, since your class. I am pretty conservative. I just trade from the long side, but I'm getting really good at picking the hidden-pivot reversal points for the uptrend!"
Dates are not yet firm for a fourth seminar to be held in Sydney, Australia, but it looks like it will take place either in November 2006 or February 2007. The class is filling up, so do let me know soon if you’d like to attend.
