We may be living in “interesting times,” but you’d never know it from watching the stock market closely.  On most days, monitoring shares from minute to minute and hour to hour is about as interesting as watching mold form on bread. Stocks typically establish a trading range within the first hour, then spend the rest of the day doing the bidding of traders second-guessing each other; of computers second-guessing the second-guessers; and of supercomputers second-guessing all else. Oh, right. There was that wicked day in late February – “Grey Tuesday,” as it was called by some, even if old timers may have regarded it more as a tropical squall rather than a hurricane worthy of a name. Permabears should ask themselves whether it was worth the wait – one day of exhilaration to compensate them for nearly six years worth of betting the “Don’t Pass” line.

We seem to have found a way around the tedium Monday night, leveraging Comex Gold. The futures markets may be relatively thin and illiquid in after-hours trading, but that doesn’t mean they are oblivious to our Hidden Pivots. The chart above shows the subtle take-off signal that we used to get long June Gold overnight. Here is the actual advice that went out early in the evening:  “We've projected upside over the near term to 693.20, but the futures will first need to push above 678.00 to create the minor bullish impulse leg that would kick off the anticipated rally. If the implied 678.10 tick occurs in the dead of night, I'd suggest getting long there with a stop-loss you can handle. Switch to a trailing stop at 678.70, since that is the point where the bull's resurgence would begin to look truly promising.” 

And here was an update that went out later Monday evening, after the recommended trade had triggered:  “It's nearly 11 p.m. EST and we've had liftoff. June Gold is currently trading 680.60, and I would therefore recommend taking 50% profits if the long trade advised above was initiated with multiple contracts. If you hold but a single contract, raise the stop so that no loss is possible, switching to a trailing stop of at least $1.80 if and when 681.70 is touched. That would create a new impulse leg with bullish implications going forward.”

On paper, at least, the trade was worth about $700 to anyone who initiated a single-contract position and let it ride. Not bad for a few hours’ work. We were not so fortunate in the mini-Dow, where I’d suggested another night-owl special, bottom-fishing a Hidden Pivot support at 12619 (see chart immediately above). As it turned out, the futures made their turn from 12621, two ticks above our bid. Came morning, I suggested canceling the bid, but savoring the moment, “serenely secure in the knowledge that there will always be other opportunities” in the future.  As indeed there will be.