I put out a fleeting buy signal yesterday on Sirius Satellite Radio after a chart alert I’d set earlier this year warned that the stock was approaching a long-term target at $2.87. SIRI shares were hovering closer to $4.00 when the forecast was made, and although the implied 30 percent drop seemed like overkill, we’ve learned never to second-guess our technical indicators, especially Hidden Pivots. In this instance, those indicators fortunately tempered our enthusiasm for accumulating a stock that had traded as high as $60 during the dot-com boom. It’s hard to imagine Sirius would not be a bargain at these levels, but perhaps not. That’s because SIRI’s funereal dirge yesterday exceeded our Hidden Pivot target at 2.87 by nine cents – a seemingly trivial miss that in our book is as good as a mile.

We stopped ourselves out of the long position after holding it for several hours, although one guy in the Rick’s Picks chat room confessed to having ignored my instruction to exit the trade if SIRI fell even a little, to 2.79. We admonished him gently, noting that our enthusiasm was never so much for the stock itself as for the Hidden Pivot at 2.87 that had looked so promising. The fact that this support was exceeded by a relatively whopping nine cents implies that still-lower prices impend. From a fundamental standpoint, we would infer that it may be yet a while longer before Sirius finds a profitable business model, assuming it ever does.

World-Class Mouth

Expectations for Sirius were nothing less than circus-is-coming-to-town giddy after Howard Stern signed on a couple of years ago. In retrospect, it is clear that it was Stern’s world-class mouth that helped pump up SIRI shares. Indeed, he was as relentless a promoter of the company as he has always been of himself. But so far, Sirius has been a bust. With Stern involved, we can be sure the digital broadcaster’s failure was not caused by satellite radio’s shooting too low relative to popular taste. Perhaps the shock jock should take a lesson from The Donald, arguably the only celebrity in Gotham more obnoxious than Stern himself.  Trump has a canny way not only of making his failures sound like successes, but of selling the resulting flotsam to the public at markups that even Bergdorf’s would envy. We e-mailed Howard yesterday morning with a note concerning our longstanding “buy” recommendation on SIRI, but we just didn’t have the heart to tell him about the 8-cent stop-loss.

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A Guru’s Secrets

“While perusing some of your posts chronologically from months back, I'm truly struck by the remarkable prescience of many of your fearless calls. The results are uncannily accurate. Thanks again for this opportunity to profit from your usually directionally correct analyses. The subscription is worth every penny - and then some.”

-- Colin L. MacVeagh, a subscriber

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Want to learn exactly how I do it? Then click here for details concerning next month’s online Hidden Pivot Seminar on May 19-20 (Saturday/Sunday morning). Sign up now while there are still a few seats left. The goal of this course is nothing less than to teach traders and investors of all levels of experience how to forecast stocks and commodities at least as accurately and confidently as those who do it successfully for a living.

With just a cursory understanding of the material taught in the course, and a little bit of follow-up, you will never again have to ask an “expert” what he thinks about a particular stock or “the market.” That’s because you will be better equipped yourself to answer the question simply by looking at a few charts.

The course is not about technical analysis in the conventional sense, with its tired and overly scrutinized trendlines, its familiar oscillators, channels, volume indicators, and all the rest, Rather, it is a way of looking at charts with a fresh eye – to see chartts as “art,” with emphasis on visual elements of harmony, symmetry, and, indeed, beauty. My annotated charts do not look even remotely like those of other technicians, and that is why the “buy” and “sell” signals that come from them rarely coincide with those favored and used so ineptly by the herd.

Don’t Rely on ‘Experts’

The online class will be a particularly good opportunity for those who were unable to attend my classes last year in New York, Sydney, Vancouver, San Francisco or Denver. If you’ve visited the Rick’s Picks chat room and marveled at the forecasting skill of seminar grads, this course is designed to quickly bring you up to their level. While I cannot guarantee that the course will turn you into a fabulously rich trader,  I can promise, as implied above, that with a little diligence and practice, your ability to precisely predict price reversals in stocks, indexes, options and commodities will be at least as good as anyone whose forecasts you have ever paid for.

Although the on-site course was offered for as much as $2,000, I am offering it online for $960, since many of the expenses incurred in holding “live” seminars – including hotel and travel costs, and the rental of conference facilities -- are not a factor. If you are seriously interested in attending, click here for more information, or go directly to the registration page by clicking here, then clicking the “UPCOMING” tab.