The best way to see what Rick's Picks has to offer is to examine what we've said in the past. Below are links to archived comments that will give you the flavor of our commentary.
April 15 2008
Guns, Guts and God made America great! is a bumper sticker that wouldn’t raise eyebrows in Western Pennsylvania, but let a politician suggest that those are sentiments held most fervently by life’s losers, and all hell breaks lose. On the stump in San Francisco last week, Obama said workers in... » Read more
April 14 2008
We’ve dissed the news media at every opportunity because they failed so miserably to report on the problems that have caused the economy to implode. Newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times should have known better all along, but instead they served up the kind of drivel that reads... » Read more
April 11 2008
Considering how steeply the dollar has fall in recent months, we might have expected more of a bounce when the selling finally let up. Instead, since mid-March, we’ve gotten a rebound so feeble that, on the daily chart (see below), the Dollar Index has yet to exceed even a single peak recorded on the way down. To put this weakness in perspective, and based on our Hidden Pivot rules, it would take an... » Read more
April 10 2008
Gold continued to claw its way higher yesterday, making steady progress since April 1 against punitive losses that had occurred, effectively, in mere hours. Look at the chart below and you’ll see the nasty downdraft that took bullion from an all-time high near $1036 in mid-March to a recent low of $876. That’s a 15% decline, and most of it could be accounted for by just a relative handful of price... » Read more
April 09 2008
We spent about 20 hours over the last few days trying to resolve a few “minor” computer glitches whose persistence could serve to explain why Microsoft is doomed. Go ahead and argue if you like. Our PC-savvy friend Cyrus says the firm’s hold on the O/S market is so entrenched that the company doesn’t have to even remotely care what customers think of the product. He says the Microsoft could sell the... » Read more
April 08 2008
Sometimes the new media have a way of making even savvy guys sound dumb. That may have been the case yesterday in a Wall Street Journal story that attempted to explain why a 120-point rally in the Dow completely evaporated by the final bell. The smart guy quoted by the... » Read more
April 07 2008
We expect home prices to fall by at least 70 percent before the “subprime mess” has run its course in perhaps 7-8 years, so Wall Street’s recent show of exuberance would appear to be premature. Case-Shiller estimates that home values have fallen 11 percent in the last 12 months, but that would imply prices have only barely begun their slide. For the Dow Industrials, the bottom may lie even further... » Read more
April 04 2008
The Street has been bracing all week for horrendous payroll news this morning, so the numbers would have to be grim indeed to shock investors into a headline selloff. We expect the opposite, actually – a short-squeeze rally in stocks amd the dollar – if the news is anything less than ghastly. A decline of 60,000 non-farm jobs is expected, but that doesn’t sound too bad to us considering the size of... » Read more
April 03 2008
Buyers paused yesterday, presumably to sniff the air for any lingering trace of the fear that permeated Wall Street just a week ago. What a difference a day makes! Recall that as March drew to a close, the death-watch list had come to include not only Lehman Brothers and some other banking stalwarts, but the... » Read more
April 02 2008
Stocks soared yesterday on the very bold assumption that the credit crunch is over, but don’t think the dimwits who were doing the buying have cornered the market on stupidity, no sirree. It would appear that they have good company over at The Wall Street Journal, which haughtily took our beloved Hillary Clinton to task the other day for suggesting... » Read more
April 01 2008
April Fool’s Day has been anticlimactic ever since Orson Welles broadcast The War of the Worlds on American radio nearly 70 years ago. He pulled this legendary stunt on October 30, 1938 – the day before Halloween – but it set a standard for hoodwinking the public that... » Read more
March 31 2008
This is no mere recession we are entering; rather, it is a darkening prelude to hard times whose eventual depths may lie beyond imagining. Since August, the U.S. has thrown more than a trillion dollars of rescue money at the banking system in a desperate attempt to restore confidence. This effort, while unprecedented in scope, if not to say in recklessness, has failed miserably. Lenders and... » Read more
March 28 2008
We’ve taken Larry Kudlow, Abbey Cohen, and a few other self-aggrandizing liars to task in the past for trying to spin pretty much everything as bullish, but that was before we’d heard from Barr Segal, a managing director at Los Angeles-based TCW Group Inc. On a 1 to 100 bozo scale, this guy is off-the-charts. When you read the quote attributed to him,... » Read more
March 27 2008
We’ve taken Larry Kudlow, Abbey Cohen, and a few other self-aggrandizing liars to task in the past for trying to spin pretty much everything as extremely bullish, but that was before we’d heard from Barr Segal, a managing director at Los Angeles-based TCW Group Inc. On a 1 to 100 bozo scale, this guy is practically off-the-charts. When you read the quote... » Read more
March 26 2008
Captured in a headline in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle, here’s a snapshot of California barreling down the road to ruin: “Gas Tax Revenue Windfall for State.” And here’s the... » Read more
March 25 2008
Most news outlets reported that investors were “cheered” by the Fed’s most recent rate-cut, but we know better. For it was nothing even remotely resembling cheer that pushed the Dow Industrials into a spectacular, 420-point surge last week, and into 200- and 300-point rallies since then; rather, it was the unmitigated panic of bears who had bet that stocks would... » Read more
March 24 2008
Before discussing the imploding condo market and how it could ultimately bring down the nation’s regional banks, let me digress for a moment to a kinder, gentler story that began this evening with the hankering I had for a corned beef sandwich. My wife, Marilyn, had prepared the corned beef Irish-style on St. Paddy’s Day, with the traditional side of cabbage, but I wanted the leftovers Jewish-style... » Read more
March 20 2008
Although we wrote up Tuesday’s ballistic rally as little more than a meaningless gusher of mass hysteria, most of it short-covering, we were still surprised at how quickly it receded back into near-nothingness. Nearly two-thirds of the Dow Industrials’ gains vanished with yesterday’s 293-point decline, providing fresh evidence that investors are not nearly so ebullient as the nightly news... » Read more
March 19 2008
The second epic short-squeeze in a little more than a week has sent bears a clear message: If you want to get rich betting on the sure thing, you had better be prepared to die trying. The Dow Industrials popped for a 420-point gain yesterday, driven as always by hysterical short-covering. Compounding the bears’ shock and awe was the fact that the catalyst for this latest rally was a news... » Read more
March 18 2008
It would have taken some imagination to foresee that just about every asset class save stocks would get hit yesterday. Although the Dow Industrials, for one, began the day 200 points in the hole, the blue chip average went no lower intraday, and it ultimately settled 21 points above Friday’s close. In... » Read more
March 17 2008
Would you have preferred to go home long at the close on Friday, or short? That’s a question we frequently ask in the Rick’s Picks chat room toward the end of the trading day – a little game we play to position ourselves for the next day, in true... » Read more
March 14 2008
Overly bearish sentiment has put us temporarily in the bulls’ camp, but we part company with the those who evidently are gearing for a powerful rally that lasts into summer or longer. You can’t blame stock brokers, and analysts and CNBC shills for trying to spin things that way, since they can point to Tuesday’s monster rally in the Dow as evidence that... » Read more
March 13 2008
We don’t want to be the orange blossom in the punch bowl, but it’s time to acknowledge that sentiment figures look too bearish at the moment for the stock market to collapse. Bearish gurus have outnumbered bullish gurus for twelve straight weeks in the Investors Intelligence survey, and the figures have been growing steadily more extreme with each passing week. The latest survey had 43.6% of... » Read more
March 12 2008
A tediously dull gold market appeared yesterday to shrug off the extremely inflationary implications of the Fed’s latest rescue plan for the banking system. The central bank sent shares soaring on Wall Street with the announcement that it will set aside $200 billion of Treasurys to lend to banks and securities dealers. The unsubtle subtext was that the central bank would accept as collateral for... » Read more
March 11 2008
Sometimes we feel blessed not to possess a crystal ball, since, if we’d asked the wrong question of it a year ago, the correct answer might have led us seriously astray: “At what price will Citigroup be trading a year from now, oh wise and powerful Oracle?” Some may recall that the stock hit an all-time... » Read more
March 10 2008
We had staked out a short position in Citigroup on Thursday’s close, selling March 20 calls naked for almost two bucks apiece, but the stock, aided by short covering, swam against the tide on Friday and finished with a mere 17-cent loss. So much for Friday Follies. By tradition, the stock market is supposed to act a little crazier than usual on Fridays, but all we saw was the same old teeter-totter... » Read more
March 07 2008
The catch-phrase “subprime mess” is giving way to a new financial buzzword: “counterparty risk.” Although we’ve yet to hear Katie, Brian or Bob use the term on the evening news, it’s been surfacing with increasing frequency in print, and it got a real workout yesterday when it was needed to explain why two financial giants that had not even been rumored... » Read more
March 06 2008
Two of this year’s most powerful stock-market rallies have occurred on rumors that bond-insurer Ambac Financial Group was about to be bailed out. But isn’t it a little late to be talking about rescuing a company whose stock has shed 95 percent of its value since July? Ambac’s chart (below) suggests that it should be given a decent burial, not the... » Read more
March 04 2008
With gold stealing up on the $1,000 mark, it’s silver bulls who are just coming to the party. Better late than never, we say. Silver would be trading for around $54 an ounce right now if it were keeping pace with gold the way it did in the early 1980s. In fact, you can still buy all the pure silver you want for... » Read more
March 03 2008
With the economy going to hell in a hand basket, you might think it would be easy to make a bundle shorting the shares of some stock that’s getting there fast. We thought this ourselves about MGM Mirage, a savvy casino operator that has bet the ranch on boom times in Las Vegas – and not just boom times now, but more or less forever. But the... » Read more
February 29 2008
In testimony before Congress this week, Helicopter Ben finally acknowledged publicly what most of us have assumed all along – that the Fed will continue to ease no matter what. As an unstudied idea it sounds do-able, especially with the alleged “experts” who interpret Fed policy on the evening news still working so hard to persuade us that more easy credit is somehow going to reverse a debt... » Read more
February 27 2008
Can you see the sky from where you are sitting? If not, go outside and look directly above you. Are there any $100 bills wafting your way? We didn’t think so. So much for the theory that “Helicopter Ben” would shower America with printing press money if something ever went seriously wrong with the economy. And... » Read more
February 27 2008
The Dow has tacked on 400 points since Friday, but could there be even more silliness ahead? The chart below, posted to the chat room yesterday morning, says yes, quite possibly – as much as 500 points over the next couple of weeks. That would be pretty amazing, considering the economy is falling apart, joblessness is about to explode, home prices are dropping faster than at any time since the... » Read more
February 26 2008
Traders have a saying -- “Opportunity moves to size” -- and we may get to see it play out in the form of a dramatic showdown in the gold market if the IMF receives a go-ahead from the U.S. to sell 400 tonnes of bullion from its inventory. The prospect surfaced yesterday when it was revealed that the Treasury Department apparently has been lobbying... » Read more
February 25 2008
The most violent short-squeeze we’ve witnessed in more than a week transformed a despairing stock market on Friday into the proverbial lipsticked pig. But don’t expect the little oinker to fly... » Read more
February 22 2008
Is stagflation taking hold? In our dreams, maybe, since its impact would be relatively benign in comparison to the economically lethal debt deflation now spreading from financial assets and real estate into the consumer economy. The Wall Street Journal, among others,... » Read more
February 21 2008
Whenever bullion swoons $20 or more, as it did yesterday for the umpteenth time, we need to remind ourselves that it’s only a game, one who’s sole purpose is to keep gold bulls from making easy money on the most one-sided bet since Secratariat practically lapped the field in the ’73 Derby. Who on earth could possibly think gold is a sale here? (other than Kudlow, of course. Some may... » Read more
February 20 2008
What would it take to bring the price of oil down to $75 barrel? How about the completion of a bearish chart pattern such as the one imagined in the chart below? We can just hear Brian Williams on the evening news six months from now, introducing technical analysis to the masses: “The price of crude oil fell sharply again today, hitting $75 a barrel – the... » Read more
February 19 2008
U.S. markets were closed Monday, but global action in some of the E-Mini futures contracts suggests that a significant number of traders may have spent the holiday weekend sniffing glue. How else to explain the 17-point rally that seized the E-Mini S&P (see chart below) in off-hours trading Sunday night and early Monday morning? That’s equivalent to about 130 Dow points, and Tuesday’s opening... » Read more
February 15 2008
Keen to short the shares of Citigroup, as well as those of the casino operators and certain other publicly traded companies hurtling toward certain disaster, we’ve patiently awaited the powerful short-squeeze that would finish off recalcitrant bears who survived January’s 1,100-point Dow rally. But is it possible that all of the squeezing has already been done, and that the last breath of bearish... » Read more
February 14 2008
As if preparing for a spectacular suicide, stocks once again rampaged higher, blithely ignoring yet one more glaring sign that the financial system is falling apart. The Dow settled up 179 points on the day, seemingly oblivious to a distress flare fired into the sky by Citigroup. The beleaguered banking giant told the Associated Press that about $6... » Read more
February 13 2008
Warren Buffett played the White Knight on Wall Street yesterday, promising to single-handedly buttress debt markets by writing secondary insurance on up to $800 billion of municipal bonds. Someone pointed out that it is not the muni bond market that is in trouble, but rather structured financial products. However, this seemed a niggling concern to us, since it is all but inconceivable that at least... » Read more
February 12 2008
It was springtime on Wall Street yesterday as bulls evidently seized on the notion that an economic rebound is right around the corner. This nutty idea brought the shares of General Motors in particular to a froth. The stock rallied 6% in the space of six hours, settling back 50 cents to end the day at 27.08. That’s nearly 40 percent below the exuberant peak of $43 registered back in... » Read more
February 11 2008
Gold passed every strength test we could devise last week, ending on an upswing that hints of significantly more upside to come. From a purely technical standpoint, we like the fact that corrections have been routinely reversing at Fibonacci-based supports, and that most of the subsequent rebounds have easily surpassed at least two prior peaks on the hourly chart without pausing for breath. Such... » Read more
February 08 2008
Even Wal-Mart appears to be struggling these days. Same-store sales rose a meager 0.5 percent in January and 1.4% for the fiscal year. The latter number is the lowest since the company began reporting such data 30 years ago. Not only that, customers were drawing down their gift cards more slowly than in the past and using the cards increasingly to buy... » Read more
February 07 2008
Buyers yielded ground stubbornly for the second straight day, digging themselves a deepening trap from which extrication will become more difficult as the week draws to a close. The danger became manifest on Wednesday’s opening bar, which slightly exceeded a dramatic and important low made a week ago. From a Hidden Pivot perspective the overshoot was sufficient to create a bearish, 460-point impulse... » Read more
February 06 2008
What could possibly cause bullion quotes to fall apart here? Not much that I can see. Or even imagine. Someone in the Rick’s Picks chat room said yesterday that he was looking for a powerful rally in the dollar, which would of course be a negative for gold and silver. But the only reason he could cite was that... » Read more
February 05 2008
If Microsoft buys Yahoo! to try and muscle its way on-line, why should Google even care, let alone be worried about it? Reportedly, the search-engine firm has been maneuvering behind the scenes to thwart the deal, lobbying for antitrust scrutiny and chatting up Yahoo's CEO about some joint projects. But this simply doesn't add up for a company as... » Read more
February 04 2008
Word on Friday of the first U.S. payroll contraction in more than four years barely slowed the stock market’s bullish rampage. Despite the grim news, which makes fools of those who still profess to see no recession, the Dow Industrials rose nearly a hundred points. We’d expected as much, since this is no ordinary rally, but rather a dead-cat bounce driven almost entirely by maniacal short-covering.... » Read more