The “Zimbabwe Effect” continued to rule yesterday on Wall Street, setting up the Dow Industrial Average for an almost certain push to new all-time highs in the coming days.  Recall that Zimbabwe’s stock market reportedly has been the hottest in the world, notwithstanding the fact that the nation itself is one of the worst basket cases on the African continent. The U.S. economy is not a basket case, at least not yet, but certain factors that could conceivably make it so, including a looming housing bust of epic proportions, are so palpable that one can only infer that buyers of U.S. stocks at these rarefied levels must be in the grip of some Zimbabwean-like madness.

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And what makes us so sure that stocks are headed into record territory? Simply this: A futures contract that we trade and recommend regularly has yet to reach a rally target that has been more than a month in coming. Specifically, we’re looking to get short the E-mini S&Ps at exactly 1393.25, if only as a swing- or scalp-trade. Yesterday this vehicle got as high as 1384.50 – a six-year peak – but that’s still a tad shy of our target. Assuming it gets there -- which it will -- the Dow Industrials would need to rise by about 100 points to keep pace, putting the blue chip average at new record highs. We’ll lay out some conservative shorts if the opportunity presents itself, but we shouldn’t expect to catch The Mother of All Tops.

For more important targets, including our immediate objective for June Gold, check out the Touts for Thursday at the Rick’s Picks home page.