The Dow head-faked its way to an undeserved hundred-point gain Friday morning, but it was all downhill after the opening bar.  Our prayerful mantra, “Baby needs a new pair of shoes,” was trained on the shares of Citigroup, but the karma just wasn’t working. All it would have taken  to get us massively short at our rally target, a juicy Hidden Pivot at 28.71, was a measly $1.39 gain – the cost of a bean and cheese burrito at Taco Bell. But Citihoax only teased, poking its doomed little head up to 28.10 with just enough je ne sais quoi to entice and beguile our greedy side.  We waited in vain for that final, 61-cent thrust to the target, but it was not to be. In fact, by day’s end Citi had fallen hard, dashing our hopes for a big score. Like quite a few other stocks, it settled just above its intraday lows, defying anyone who might wish it ill to place a “don’t pass” bet ahead of the weekend.

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We let the opportunity slip by, but only because the trading software we use froze up at a crucial moment.  Had we initiated a trade, though, it might just as easily have been based on a coin-toss as on our innate distrust of the smoke-and-mirrors game that has made Citigroup the walking disaster that it presently is. 

Near the end of each trading session, we’ve been playing a second-guessing game in the Rick’s Picks chat room, taking a small long or short position, whichever would seem to make a thinking man’s bear more uncomfortable. If you were short at Friday’s close, then, especially after being short during the day, you’d probably have been feeling pretty complacent when the bell sounded. That means the canny contrarian should be expecting a nice rally come Monday morning. We wouldn’t be surprised if that’s how things play out, even if Friday’s action seemed a tad despairing. For some reason, though, if there is no news on the ticker tape to roundly discourage investors when stocks begin to trade on a Monday morning, buyers seem all too eager to forget whatever the hell was troubling them on Friday.

Perhaps this is due to the unabashedly bullish bias of CNBC, which, if it were in the ranching business, would tie pretty pink bows around the necks of sheep before sending them to the slaughter. So if a rally does indeed unfold when U.S. markets open on Monday, we should treat it as we would any living, breathing thing that might be harboring anthrax. Caveat emptor!

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Seminar full, but…

The Hidden Pivot seminar scheduled for February 9-10 is filled to capacity, so I’ve added an additional session on March 8-9. If you’d like to attend, click here  for further details and instructions on how to register. The class will be held on Saturday/Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Mountain Time.  If you want to learn how to forecast stocks and commodities as confidently and precisely as top pros, this is an opportunity you should not pass up.

This One’s for Aussies!

I will also be offering a class in February that is tailored to the scheduling needs of students from Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.. If you live in Sydney, this seminar will take place on February 21-22 (Thursday and Friday), from 3:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. These hours will also work for early risers in Western Europe.  For further details, click here.  You can also register directly by clicking here, then on the “Upcoming” tab.