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.
September 30 2005
Far shrewder observers than I are already characterizing the developing Fannie Mae saga as Enron/Worldcom writ large. “The biggest Ponzi scheme in world financial history” is how one regular in a chat room I frequent -- a money manager who oversees mega-billions -- sees it. For starters, think of all the little people who for decades have been buying Fannie... » Read more
September 29 2005
The market continued to inhale and exhale yesterday. Pondering the alternatives, perhaps we should be thankful. From a hidden-pivot standpoint it was a case of rallies falling short of their modest targets and declines doing more or less the same. I had some bids in below the market in several of the mini-indexes, but sellers lacked whatever conviction it might have taken to get them filled.... » Read more
September 26 2005
I’d suggested keeping your Bulletin Launchers open Friday in case an opportunity popped up, but we certainly didn’t get much to work with. The day’s highlight was a soporific ride aboard the Mini-S&P in the early afternoon. The rally allowed us to exit on a trailing stop 20 minutes later with a 2.25-point gain, or about $100 after commissions. Lunch money if you live in... » Read more
September 23 2005
Buyers tipped their hand early yesterday when homebuilders and bank stocks refused to fall on an otherwise weak opening. In fact, two of our faves, Beazer and D.R. Horton, were actually showing gains with the Dow Industrials off nearly 30 points in the early going. We’ve always paid close attention to Citi in particular, since, as far as I’m, concerned, it’s a perfect proxy for a... » Read more
September 22 2005
December Gold spiked to 476.20 yesterday, just a hair shy of the 476.50 hidden pivot we’ve been using as a minimum rally target. Once above the pivot the futures would become be an odds-on bet to reach the next at 483.00, an impediment that looks sufficiently daunting to warrant shorting, albeit with a very tight stop-loss. Assuming a tradable pullback occurs from that number, we would expect the... » Read more
September 21 2005
Citigroup may be the perfect proxy for an economy that has been running on smoke and mirrors, and it therefore behooves us to pay close attention when the stock reverses sharply, as it did yesterday -- especially when the reversal comes precisely at a hidden pivot, as indeed it did. Citi shares have been in a short-squeeze since late August, with only a couple of minor corrections along the way. The... » Read more
September 20 2005
Gold peaked early in yesterday’s session, but not before making a 17-year high that will have very bullish implications going forward. The actual top occurred at 472.40, less than a dollar from the hidden-pivot resistance at 473.20 that I’d identified a while back as a minimum rally target. The pivot could still show a little stopping power later this week, but judging from the way the futures... » Read more
September 19 2005
This market creeps me out, really. It’s one thing for stocks to climb a wall of worry, but quite another for them to dance a jig every time the major averages advance a foot or two on some fresh shard of appalling news from Iraq or New Orleans. Bad news is good news these days, in case you hadn’t noticed, and as far as Wall Street is concerned, the disaster in... » Read more
September 16 2005
Is it time to short Google? This is a question that pops up frequently in my mail, and although the short-term answer may be “yes,” the longer-term outlook should temper our enthusiasm for betting against the Web’s reigning searchmeister. The company is pursuing a course that will put it increasingly in competition with Microsoft, and although it could... » Read more
September 15 2005
I don’t like the way the averages trashed a couple of hidden pivots supports yesterday, not at all, and I said so in an intraday bulletin. We had bids in below the market in two trading vehicles, the Mini-Russell and the Mini-Dow. The latter fell to 10630 in the first two hours of the session, just a single tick above the 10631 hidden-pivot target I’d... » Read more
September 14 2005
Although Rick’s Picks is not explicitly geared to day trading, I’ll occasionally send out updates and recommendations in... » Read more
September 13 2005
We offered the E-Mini Nasdaq short at 1615.00 yesterday, and although that hidden pivot offered daunting resistance throughout the day, we ended the session with no position. A case of cold feet? Definitely not. I’m as eager to short the market at these levels as you are, but only if we are able to initiate a position on our terms. On Monday, I’d specified that the short offer be left in until 10:30... » Read more
September 12 2005
Interesting times beget interesting e-mail, of course, and last week’s torrent of messages and attachments commenting on these all-too-interesting times could take me a month of Sundays to get through. I can only hope that next week is wholly uninteresting, eerie is that might seem, lest I get even further behind in my reading. A week of profound eventlessness wouldn’t be so bad for humanity,... » Read more
September 09 2005
My comments will be brief today, since I’ll be on my way shortly to Denver for a talk on Hidden Pivots before the Denver Trading Group. The major indexes stalled once again at the modest rally targets I’d flagged for Wednesday. As a result, the short offers... » Read more
September 08 2005
We had some short offers in somewhat above the market yesterday, but the intraday rallies were too feeble to reach even these modest targets. Nor did it prove particularly helpful to have gotten the targets precisely right, as the nearly untradeable price action in the mini-S&P demonstrated. After the futures exceeded the previous day’s target, 1232.50, by a single tick, we shifted our... » Read more
September 07 2005
The stock market continues to act as though the U.S. economy will finesse the awesome destruction caused by Katrina as easily as it might a month-long drought in the Corn Belt. Bulls evidently are confident the hurricane will have earned... » Read more
September 06 2005
How will New Orleans and the Gulf states ever clean up the mess and rebuild, especially if the hurricane season throws yet another nasty punch as has been predicted? My... » Read more
September 02 2005
Gold surged $9 on Thursday, with the dollar weakening on doubts about how well the U.S. will cope with soaring energy prices. Perhaps the newly emboldened dollar bears should be asking themselves what will happen if the... » Read more
September 01 2005
Investors evidently found a firm new toehold in the wall of worry yesterday, this time in the form of a prediction by the Oil Price Information Service that gas is likely to hit $4.00 a gallon before long. How crazed did buyers become over this prospect? Well, check out the chart below, which I’ve left unlabeled. Which stocks do you guess would be the very last to rally under the circumstances? If... » Read more
August 31 2005
We bought some more cheapie puts in Citi yesterday off a stingy bid that was filled when the stock grew frisky around mid-day. Inspired by a promotional message that I received recently from a brassy competitor, it would be tempting for me to tout annualized gains so far of 9000%, since the puts closed 0.10 above our 0.45 purchase price. But you know better – know that, in fact, the gain when... » Read more
August 30 2005
Mr. Greenspan’s recent, characteristically understated warning about a softening in home prices should have been enough to set stocks tumbling on Monday; instead, they climbed. That’s what happens, apparently, when you give investors a couple of days to mull over bad news while the markets are closed. With Katrina savaging the Gulf, shutting down drilling rigs and threatening to destroy... » Read more
August 29 2005
The stock market continues to look like it’s prepping for a meltdown, but if Friday’s tired action is any indication, we may get a chance to buy some puts next week before the plunge begins. To be sure, trading volume has started to dry up in advance of Labor Day weekend, and this can sometimes cause price volatility to expand due to the absence of liquidity. This time around, though, because of the... » Read more
August 26 2005
In early March, with gold futures trading $10 lower, I pledged that I would never become a shill for gold, nor would I send out any bulletins exhorting you to beg, borrow or steal every dollar within reach to plow into bullion. I believe I’ve kept my promise to avoid sensationalizing the case for gold, even if this has made Rick’s Picks a duller read for... » Read more
August 25 2005
We had bids in below the market yesterday for the QQQs, Diamonds, the mini-Dow and the mini-S&P, and even though each fell very precisely to the low I’d projected**, we still managed to come away empty-handed. That’s because the respective bottoms were not reached until the final minutes of the day, hours after my time limits on our bids had expired. Stocks had moved earnestly higher in the... » Read more
August 24 2005
The chart below suggests that although we missed a great opportunity to short the Diamonds a couple of weeks ago, we’re likely to get another chance, and probably soon. Note that the most recent rally produced a price peak of 107.33 on August 10. That high came within just 0.05 points of an important hidden pivot at 107.38, strongly implying that the three-month bull cycle that produced it is... » Read more
August 23 2005
The small put position that we held to expiration died ingloriously last week during my brief absence, as stocks continued to skate blithely on a narrow plank of less-than-horrendous news. The bulls, putting their always-sunny spin on world events, seemed oblivious to the glowering menace of $3 gas, the latest triumph of jihad in... » Read more
August 11 2005
I’ll be away from the office for the next ten days, so Thursday’s forecasts and recommendations will be the last until my return on Monday morning, August 22. For what it’s worth, I should mention that the stock market has taken wicked dives in my absence more often than would seem probable. Coincidentally, however, a stockbroker friend who has... » Read more
August 09 2005
Crude oil quotes are approaching a potentially important top, although it’s too early to say whether this will keep pump prices from hitting $3.00 by autumn. Focusing on the September contract, we’ve been awaiting a short-able peak at exactly $65.02, a little more than a dollar above yesterday’s record-high $63.99. Some... » Read more
August 08 2005
A glum day on Wall Street, for sure, though not necessarily for Rick’s Picks subscribers. We went bottom-fishing against the trend in the mini-Dow futures, catching what turned out to be the... » Read more
August 05 2005
For nearly two weeks, we’ve been expecting the S&P futures to spear a hidden-pivot resistance at 1249.75, clearing the way for a quick follow-through to at least 1272.75. However, it’s beginning to look as though they might not be up to the task. Yesterday’s stall at 1248.50 created a double top with last Friday’s, and it wouldn’t take much additional weakness for the futures to start... » Read more
August 04 2005
Bullion has perked up nicely in the last few days, delivering on the promise of certain bullish technical signs that I cited here last week in an intraday bulletin: “Some VERY bullish action in gold this morning,” I wrote back then. “The ABCD pattern I've labeled in the August Gold... » Read more
August 03 2005
To our growing list of subscribers who have been through the trading-seminar mill, add Eric O., who offers some tips below that could help to shorten your learning curve. Eric writes as... » Read more
August 02 2005
Pessimism is frowned on at one of the chat groups that I frequent. The members are a quite diverse bunch, including big-time traders, money managers and financial speculators, but most of them evidently see eye to eye when it comes to the economy: sunny and warm on most days, with a chance of scattered showers. The group’s leader posted an open letter to... » Read more
August 01 2005
Friday’s broad weakness turned my bullish forecasts to dross, but even so, I have my doubts that the rally has breathed its last. Subscriber Randy J. evidently made a few bucks fading my advice, which was to jump on near-term calls in the Diamonds and QQQs. He wrote as follows: “When you ‘threw in the towel’ and bought calls at-the-market, I had a... » Read more
July 29 2005
Now here’s a coincidence: I was planning to comment on Citigroup’s reluctance to get in gear with the market when I received the following message yesterday afternoon from my technically savvy friend and old PSE colleague, Tom Tankka: “Rick, any feelings about Citi’s weakness versus the market?”... » Read more
July 29 2005
Now here’s a coincidence: I was planning to comment on Citigroup’s reluctance to get in gear with the market when I received the following message yesterday afternoon from my technically savvy friend and old PSE colleague, Tom Tankka: “Rick, any feelings about Citi’s weakness versus the market?”... » Read more
July 28 2005
The fact that my newsletter once came free to about 6,000 subscribers hasn’t stopped at least a few of them from complaining constantly about how awful it was. “Go back to kindergarten and learn how to write,” admonished one. “And while you’re at it, try learning how to read a stock chart.” A frustrated trader, perhaps? You can never be sure,... » Read more
July 27 2005
Hey, if you’ve got a story to tell, don’t be shy! Yesterday’s tips here on how to spot phony gurus and trading instructors elicited some interesting tales from paid-up subscriber Joseph S., who qualifies as a true expert on the subject. Joe writes as... » Read more
July 26 2005
Like many of you, I am constantly being bombarded by marketing hype from investment gurus who claim they will make me RICH. And although, like you, my gut reaction is to assume that most of them are charlatans, I too have a greedy spot for the right pitch. So far, though, I've come across nary a one that has delivered on its promise. Not that there aren’t any gurus out there whose advice can... » Read more
July 25 2005
I’ve toned down talk of Armageddon in my comments here recently, even though I remain convinced the U.S. and global economies are inching toward a deflationary bust of millennial proportions. Stock charts have helped to temper my... » Read more
July 22 2005
Google shares were getting bludgeoned in after-hours trading, down nearly $17 on word that revenues had grown by “only”100% over a year-earlier’s $700 million, and that profits had merely quadrupled. Here’s how the resident genius at Susquehanna Financial struggled to explain it: Revenue was a little better than published expectations, said Marianne Wolk, the firm’s Internet analyst,... » Read more
July 21 2005
Yesterday’s two-and-a-half hour Q&A session covered quite a bit of ground, and I was able to field questions from more than a dozen paid subscribers during that time. Some of what we discussed bears repeating, including a 1242.50 target for the mini-S&P that was broached at the end of the session. That is now my minimum objective for this vehicle over the near term, and it will be short-able... » Read more
July 20 2005
T-Bond futures have been flaccid since early June, presumably correcting the ten percent rally that began nine weeks earlier. But is it merely a correction? From a hidden-pivot standpoint, the last few days have taken a heavy toll. Recall what I wrote here in early June: “After spiking to within three... » Read more
July 19 2005
It should be clear to you by now that we don’t need much price movement to trade ‘em up profitably -- only swings that produce intraday highs and lows, and the ability to use ultra-tight stop-losses. On Friday, for instance, the biggest intraday swing in the mini-S&P was just 6.25 points, or $312. In retrospect, you might ask why anyone would have bothered to attempt to trade such a burp. But if... » Read more
July 15 2005
The chart below shows just how leaden stocks have become lately. Since peaking in late 2002, the VIX has fallen to within a hair of ten-year lows and now threatens to turn an already lethargic summer comatose. These days, technicians must burrow down to 15-minute charts to find anything resembling a trend, and the randomness of each session’s opening would vex a svengali. We continue to plug along... » Read more
July 14 2005
Yesterday morning’s Q&A session produced some eye-openers, including a new, $326 target for Google. The stock is trading just below $300 right now, having recorded an all-time high at $309 two weeks ago. Back in late May, with GOOG trading around $287, I projected a potentially shortable high at $315. Now, though, it looks as though the stock wants to go even higher. Because GOOG is a good proxy... » Read more
July 13 2005
With Hurricane Dennis’s destructive power all but spent, news concerning Karl Rove’s mounting troubles dominated the airwaves yesterday. Notwithstanding the President’s expression of confidence in him, Rove will likely be history by August. Of considerably less interest was the turgid price movement on the nation’s major bourses. For traders, it was the kind of day that could make glue-sniffing seem... » Read more
July 12 2005
The news media were feasting on Hurricane Dennis yesterday, even if it was no longer packing quite the punch of last year’s worst storms. In Washington, Karl Rove may have breathed a sigh of relief, since, between the weather and last week’s bombings in... » Read more
July 11 2005
Thursday’s oversold bounce turned into an outright short-squeeze Friday, when stocks rose throughout the session with just one minor correction intraday. Fortunately, there needn’t be any confusion or guesswork about what is yet to come, since the thrust brought the Industrial Average to within inches of an important hidden-pivot resistance at 10465.77.... » Read more
July 08 2005
Jihad came to the London Underground yesterday, killing 37 people and injuring another 700 but causing only a hiccup on Wall Street. The Dow Industrials ended the day with a 31-point gain after selling off hard in overnight trading when news of the bombing first hit. Perhaps the markets were reassured by Tony Blair’s morning TV appearance shortly after a series of explosions brought... » Read more
July 06 2005
With a currently bullish outlook on precious metals and the mining sector, we’re particularly eager to hear from subscribers with fresh ideas. Here’s one from subscriber Tim Huizenga that came my way during yesterday’s real-time Q&A session:... » Read more
July 05 2005
Recent wrist surgery will constrain me from posting essays here over the next several weeks. Instead, I have increased the emphasis on identifying potentially profitable trades in stocks, options, commodities and mini-futures, and in providing detailed instructions for manevering in and out of these vehicles. My advice is geared not only toward short-term traders, but to... » Read more
July 05 2005
Recent wrist surgery will constrain me from posting essays here over the next several weeks. Instead, I have increased the emphasis on identifying potentially profitable trades in stocks, options, commodities and mini-futures, and in providing detailed instructions for manevering in and out of these vehicles. My... » Read more
June 28 2005
I’ve reproduced two charts below, one suggesting that the euro is about to rise, the other that the dollar will fall. My conclusions are based on the dramatic way in which stochastic indicators for each have diverged relative to price. In the top chart, notice how the September euro’s five-day decline failed to get very oversold before the futures reversed and shot higher.... » Read more
June 27 2005
We had bids in below the market Friday for some QQQ calls, but perhaps we shouldn’t be too disappointed about not getting filled. The July 37s were trading for 2.00 apiece earlier this month and for 1.40 as recently as Thursday, but as the index tumbled yesterday toward an abysmal close, the July 37s came within 0.05 of our stingy 45-cent bid.... » Read more
June 24 2005
Investors supposedly were spooked by rising oil prices yesterday, but a glance at the chart below could make one wonder why they weren’t just as spooked last Friday and on Monday, when crude quotes first brushed against the $60 threshold. Wall Street denizens must have missed the previous day’s interview of Andrea Mitchell, aka Mrs. Alan Greenspan, on Imus in the Morning. “No one... » Read more
June 23 2005
I majored in English literature, one reason why my trading system is light on such quantitative tools as regression analysis and chaos theory. Even so, I’m unaware of any other system that consistently yields swing points more precise than the hidden pivots I serve up here each day. The... » Read more
June 22 2005
Just when you think things couldn’t get any duller… This time, though, technical signs are mildly disquieting, perhaps warning that we should be on our guard. But against what? I refer you to the chart below, which shows that the DJIA’s funereal rally over the last two weeks has left stochastic tracks that look even more somber than the... » Read more
June 21 2005
With summer narcolepsy beginning to infuse Wall Street like embalming ether, we’ll turn our attention once again to the far more interesting topic of the housing bubble. The bubble surely exists, no matter what anyone says to the contrary, but one wonders whether its inevitable collapse is being delayed by anticipation itself. Anyone not from Mars will have noticed by now that the... » Read more
June 20 2005
It was morning in America on Friday for the home-builders, whose shares all gapped higher after a creative analyst at Smith Barney came up with a hitherto unsuspected reason why we should still be bullish on the... » Read more
June 17 2005
Gold quotes rose sharply yesterday, supported by heavy fund buying that included a million-ounce purchase by one player. I’d told you to expect a rally to at least 436.80, which is precisely where the August Comex contract topped before taking a 90-minute breather. A subsequent two-dollar retracement left the futures sufficiently recharged for a further push to 438.50, portending... » Read more
June 15 2005
Monday’s edition featured the thoughts of fellow deflationist Mike "Mish" Shedlock, who believes as I do that this world is far too deeply in hock to avoid a debt deflation. Mish covered a lot of ground in explaining why this is so, but I’d like to add my two-cents’ worth, since he left a few things unsaid that could affect all investors – even financial geniuses like... » Read more
June 14 2005
Sharply rising oil quotes sapped the bull’s vigor yesterday, turning what began as a promising day into yet another exercise in tedium. We were prepared to pounce on the Russell mini-contract regardless of whether it went higher or lower, and although it did both during the course of the day, the trading range was too narrow to get us long or short.... » Read more
June 13 2005
Today I introduce you to the deflationist arguments of Whiskey and Gunpowder editor Mike “Mish” Shedlock, whose logic is quite similar to my... » Read more
June 10 2005
Another flatulent day on Wall Street. But just as I was getting Friday’s Touts under way, this message popped up on my computer... » Read more
June 09 2005
You’ve heard the saying, “a watched pot never boils.” Well, neither, apparently, does a watched stock market. Judging from my mail these days, tous le monde thinks shares are fixing either to scream or to collapse. Even my own technical indicators appear to be demanding some BIG event, and soon. And how did... » Read more
June 08 2005
Investors reverted to their worrisome ways yesterday, taking stocks for a rollercoaster ride after seemingly contradictory statements about the Fed’s intentions were made, respectively, by Alan Greenspan and Jack Guynn, a member of the Open Market Committee. I won’t try to deconstruct either guy’s words here, since that might run afoul of the Fed’s... » Read more
June 07 2005
For now, I’m sticking with my prediction of a tediously bullish summer, but there are some unmistakable warning signs that suggest stocks could fall over the near-term, perhaps sharply. Below is a chart that I published intraday that shows an incipiently bearish arc developing in the Dow Average’s daily-bar stochastic. While it would require only a... » Read more
June 06 2005
It’s no secret: I’d rather be known as a child molester than keep company with CNBC’s bull-pen regulars. Let me tick off some of the reasons why we should shun the mindless optimism that these days passes for hard analysis on the Street: 1) the economy is being propped up by record borrowing; 2) a monstrous housing bubble could pop at any time; 3) two of the country’s largest... » Read more
June 03 2005
Below is another of the many letters I received in response to my recent commentary on the decline in mortgage-lending standards. It’s impossible to know how many Americans fear that a housing bust is imminent, but judging from my mail such fears run deep. The letter is from a man in the lending business whom I quoted here earlier. In further recounting his apprenticeship in the... » Read more
June 02 2005
The bad-news-is-good-news mania that has ruled financial markets in recent months appears to have given way to a new mood, one that apparently perceives good news as, well, good news. T-bond prices soared as yields on the 10-year bond smashed below 4.00%. When active trading ceased for the day, they were trading to yield 3.89%, their lowest level in 14 months. Shares were nicely... » Read more
June 01 2005
My recent feature on the steep decline in lending standards drew some illuminating responses. I will reprint several of them this week, starting with the following letter from a man who once worked for World Mortgage, the primary lending arm of Golden West Financial Corp.. Although Golden West still enjoys a stellar reputation, the source... » Read more
May 31 2005
In my commentary a few weeks ago, I painted a romantic picture of gamblers who while away their days at the racetrack, smoking Cuban cigars and splurging their winnings on the good life. A friend of mine who has spent a great deal more time at the racetrack than I, and who knows better, has asked for equal time. Fortunately he is a Harvard-trained... » Read more
May 27 2005
The U.S. real estate bubble continues to swell like a lava dome, supporting full-blown manias on both coasts and in quite a few cities, suburbs and towns in between. You'd have to live in a... » Read more
May 26 2005
Wednesday’s on-line Q&A session was quite a bit longer than usual, but it allowed me to field queries in real time from more than a dozen subscribers. Tradable issues that received coverage intraday included the mini-S&P and mini-Nasdaq contracts, as well orange juice futures, General Motors, the Housing Sector Index, Imperial Oil, Clifton... » Read more
May 25 2005
If red were to come up on a roulette wheel ten times in a row, would you start betting only on black? Many less-seasoned gamblers would, perhaps even increasing their bet size if the streak continued. That might sound like a way to make a huge score eventually, but in fact those who bet like this habitually are almost guaranteed to die broke. For,... » Read more
May 24 2005
Is it possible the chart below can provide us with a simple answer to the question of what lies in store for the stock market this summer? My eye is drawn to the overbought peaks corresponding to the DJIA’s two most recent highs on the daily chart. There is no divergence here, only a regular pattern of... » Read more
May 23 2005
June Gold has broken down once again with Friday’s breach of a hidden-pivot support at 417.70. Earlier in the week the futures took a weak bounce off that number that lasted for a few days, but now that it has been violated a test of round-number support at $400 seems likely. Bullion’s weakness was corroborated by corresponding strength in the... » Read more
May 20 2005
The momentous debate over judicial filibusters is making C-Span more interesting these days than the stock market. I had both running side-by-side on my desk yesterday, but it was no contest. The E-mini S&Ps were in a trance-inducing pattern that did little more than amplify the overnight session’s faint pulse, producing gratuitous six-point... » Read more
May 19 2005
The stock market was at its nutty, kinky, entertaining, devil-may-care best yesterday as shares in the home builders exploded higher on word that the Fed intends to keep raising administered rates. "The federal funds rate appears still to be below the level that we would expect to be consistent with the maintenance of stable inflation and full... » Read more
May 18 2005
That’s gratitude for you. The Chinese have been selling us nearly everything we need to live the life of Riley on the cheap – flat-panel TV sets, stainless steel patio grills, down comforters, graphite-frame trail bikes, silk scarves, custom furniture, computerized running shoes, robotic vacuum cleaners, laser pointers, you name it.... » Read more
May 17 2005
Both gold and the dollar reached hidden-pivot targets yesterday that deserve our close attention. I’d advertised a 417.70 downside objective last week for Comex June Gold and an 86.33 rally target for the Dollar Index. Both objectives were very nearly met on Monday, with the Dollar Index topping at 86.39 and June gold bottoming at 418.20. I... » Read more
May 16 2005
If ebbing fear of inflation is Wall Street’s current flavor of the week, can fear of deflation be far behind? Before you answer that question, consider what was going on in the bond markets on Friday. For one, the 10-year T-note was banging away at our ambitious, hidden-pivot rally target, sending... » Read more
May 13 2005
Let’s you and I wake up this morning and break some mirrors, just to show the Karma who’s boss, okay? We’ll lean ladders against our houses and exercise beneath them at hourly intervals. And keep salt shakers at our desks to freshen the luck o’ the devil. And spray-paint our cats black, just to screw with our neighbors’ heads. And then, we’ll... » Read more
May 12 2005
The skies around Washington D.C. buzzed with urgent activity yesterday, matched by a crisis alert on the ground that sent the news media into a tizzy for several hours.... » Read more
May 11 2005
Rick’s Picks subscribers who kept their Bulletin Launchers open yesterday received a timely morning update for the S&P futures that could have made one’s day. The mini-contract had just breached a hidden-pivot support at 1168.50, and although the low then was just a single point beneath the pivot, the slight breach of the... » Read more
May 10 2005
A week ago gold looked as though it needed just a little more weakness to set the stage for a potentially powerful rally. At the time, I specifically identified a promising hidden-pivot support in the Gold Bugs Index (HUI), and said it would have to be touched before bullion took off. The pivot lies at 172.69, but what we got instead was a so-far pathetic bounce from 175.32. This is not... » Read more
May 09 2005
Pack journalism found the easy story in Friday’s Labor Department announcement -- that U.S. job growth was gangbusters in April. Since good news is bad news these days, this was as about as bad as it gets. As everyone knows, evidence of... » Read more
May 06 2005
You know it was a weird day when Michael Jackson’s stock rose while nearly everyone else’s fell. His lawyers put a 22-year-old on the witness stand who swore Jackson had not molested him as a child. You read that... » Read more
May 05 2005
Readers will already know that I’m no big fan of General Motors or its cars, but you’ve got to hand it to Kirk Kerkorian for seeing great value in a company that many of us believe could not be jump-started with a nitro methane enema. Kerkorian has offered a very substantial premium to buy up to 28 million shares of the automaker’s stock, notwithstanding the fact that Wall Street has treated them... » Read more
May 04 2005
Quick Quiz: Fed meeting days provide an ideal opportunity for investors to: a) catch up on TiVo; b) clean the paperwork from their desks; c) play nine holes; d) meet their paramours for brunch; e) any or all of the above; f) none of the above. If you selected ‘e’ – any or all of the above -- then you’re probably a seasoned Fed-watcher. Which is to say, you have the good sense to be anywhere but in... » Read more
May 03 2005
I’ve been doing my best to avoid raising your expectations for gold, since technical signs have not looked too promising for the last couple of... » Read more
May 02 2005
A man tells his broker he would like to start trading stock index futures. The broker warns against it, saying, "It’s pretty risky. You can be up big one day and down big the next." "Oh, I know that,” replies the client. “That's why I'm only going to trade every other... » Read more
April 29 2005
Investors should be careful what they wish for, since a few more tepid GDP reports like yesterday’s and someone might have to declare a recession. We’d almost begun to believe that any evidence whatsoever of a faltering economy would be music to Wall Street’s ears, since that, supposedly, is the only thing that might convince the Fed to stop tightening. Would that things were so... » Read more
April 28 2005
Oil down, stocks up. Can we look forward to more of this? Sure looks like it. Bids for crude got savaged yesterday, and although the decline left prices sitting above a key low near $51 recorded ten days ago, the support looked unlikely to endure. Once it gives way, look for the June contract to sink to at least 49.19, a hidden pivot that should turn things around, if perhaps for... » Read more
April 27 2005
For the past several days, we’ve eagerly awaited the opportunity to short the S&Ps futures at exactly 1170.75, a hidden pivot that promised to be the fat pitch of a trader’s dreams. It never occurred to us that so very modest a target would remain beyond the reach of bulls. But so far it has been -- despite the fact that as recently as last Thursday, the occasionally... » Read more
April 26 2005
NBC led the evening news Monday night with the rhetorical question, “Can a troubled GM save its bottom line?” We’ve discussed GM’s mounting and seemingly intractable problems here many times before, most recently under the heading “Shrinking to Survive.” General Motors is getting smaller, all right, but the process has a very different... » Read more
April 25 2005
Investors had plenty to worry about on Friday, with oil quotes sharply on the rise and rumors circulating that North Korea would test a nuclear weapon over the weekend. These and other factors, including the usual... » Read more
April 22 2005
Even IBM got in gear with yesterday’s strong rally, registering its first gain in fifteen trading sessions. You may recall that it was Big Blue that stoked the broad market’s decline a week ago, when Q1 earnings came in a nickel below expectations. When the news hit the tape after the close, investors wasted little time dumping not only IBM shares but nearly everything else. In... » Read more
April 20 2005
The “core” rate of inflation, whatever the hell that is, came in at 0.4% yesterday -- twice what had been expected by economists -- causing pundits’ usually feeble imaginations to leap farther than we can ever recall in a failed attempt to rationalize away our concerns. Are you ready for the number one reason why we shouldn’t be too... » Read more
April 19 2005
Sellers who had inundated the stock market on Friday seem to have overslept yesterday, getting the week off to a ho-hum start. The Dow Industrials were never down more than 70 points intraday, and they finished off a mere 16 points, mocking those investors who may have spent the weekend steeping in anxiety. Considering the nearly $5 hit that 3M shares took, it’s probably a... » Read more
April 18 2005
Stocks tumbled to their worst weekly finish in more than two years Friday, prompting some old-timers to wonder whether it might be the beginning of a 1987-style meltdown. For reasons that I will explain shortly, I doubt it. But we shouldn’t get our hopes up that, come Monday morning, the NYSE will announce that we were all punk’d. No matter what happens, though,... » Read more
April 15 2005
There are days when Wall Street easily could have shrugged off word from IBM of a five-cent earnings shortfall, but yesterday wasn’t one of them. Big Blue reported 85 cents a share for the first quarter, but the analysts’ "dartboard number" evidently was a nickel higher.... » Read more
April 14 2005
Wednesday’s despairing wallow retraced all of the previous day’s short-squeeze rally. To make things worse, the decline was continuous, more or less, from the opening bell. What has the NYSE come to when the floor specialists can’t even muster a head-fake on the opening to sandbag widows, orphans and pensioners? Granted, the previous day’s rally completely lived up to our... » Read more
April 12 2005
Westchester residents can breathe a sigh of relief now that a judge has rejected Martha Stewart’s request to shorten her confinement period. With Martha safely behind a picket fence until Labor Day or so, the locals will be able to go... » Read more
April 11 2005
Stray comments concerning the impending real estate crash perked up my e-mail on an otherwise dull Friday. I received from various sources, respectively, a CNBC report that 85% of the buyers in Miami’s condo market are speculators (probably true, according to an old... » Read more
April 08 2005
I put out an advisory yesterday morning when Citi was looking feisty enough to drag the entire market higher. Not that it actually could, given that the bull market for bank stocks peaked in 2000. But Citi nonetheless remains one of the key bellwethers for a go-go era that has yet to dance its last shing-a-ling. And when the company's shares are looking particularly strong, or... » Read more
April 07 2005
Having sidestepped considerable pain a while back by bailing out of some low-priced mining stocks that were bound even lower, we are obliged to reconsider them now that they’ve come to despond so close to the zero axis. Canyon Resources and Durban Roodeport have both fallen to levels where I’d said they’d become attractive. Not that... » Read more
April 06 2005
Yesterday was yet another grueling test of patience for those trying to squeeze off a shot in the index futures. My crosshairs were trained on the S&Ps, but the only trade I executed all day was a misfire. I had a limit bid in somewhat below the market but inadvertently turned it into a market order with an impatient keystroke. So much for picking one’s opportunities.... » Read more
April 04 2005
Crude futures have been moving quite precisely to our pivots, as some of you have noticed. The last minor-cycle peak fell just a nickel shy of a well advertised 58.21 projection, and the subsequent low at 53.45 (basis the continuous contract) missed by just 12 cents. Now the futures are off and running again, bound in my estimation for at least... » Read more
April 04 2005
There was fleeting joy in Mudville Friday when the U.S. economy struck out, statistically speaking. Monthly payroll numbers came in weaker than “expected,” causing the kind of... » Read more
April 01 2005
For those who follow the stock market closely, nothing stirs the imagination like a prolonged stretch of boredom. The less stocks do, it seems, the more vividly we come to expect dramatic change. In such times, investors dwell in a purgatory of angst, the psychological boundaries of which are described, literally, by Bollinger bands: Squeeze them too tightly or for too... » Read more
March 31 2005
We covered our short position in the E-mini S&P yesterday, just before stocks broke out on the close. Now, the goal is to be flat or long until such time as the futures serve up another fat pitch. The last one came on March 7, when we shorted the June futures within a single tick of a multiyear high. Our downside objective was 1159.25, but yesterday’s rally negated that... » Read more
March 30 2005
A subscriber took me to task in an e-mail yesterday for scaling back my coverage of precious metal shares in the last few months. In retrospect, with gold in the dispiriting throes of a bear cycle that began in November, my response is to ask, What more might I have said? I am as bullish as ever on gold’s long-term prospects, but I cannot bring myself to be a cheerleader each day... » Read more
March 29 2005
I’d provided a strategy for Monday that would have temporarily flattened our short position in the S&Ps, but only if the futures had dipped slightly on the opening. Instead, they rose moderately, presumably because the dollar was up and crude down in Sunday overnight trading. Both obviously have been weighing on investors’ angst-ridden minds lately -- oil prices the moreso now... » Read more
March 28 2005
It is a matter of record that America’s economic recovery over the last four years has been little more than a statistical hoax. Although real GDP supposedly has grown by... » Read more
March 16 2005
Hard to tell what was driving stocks yesterday: anthrax, higher oil prices, unfavorable lunar influences, rising bond yields -- take your pick. It may have been a combination of all of them, but if so, the net effect wasn’t very dramatic. The Dow was off a piddling 59 points, in line with other indexes that eased lower from around... » Read more
March 15 2005
We’ve had bids in below the market for the mini-Dow futures and the E-mini S&P, but two days of waiting has yet to see either order filled. These are not lows of any great consequence, just minor-cycle bottoms that in theory, at least, should yield low-risk entry points for some well-leveraged bottom-fishing. We’re already short the S&Ps and have been looking for an... » Read more
March 14 2005
We added to our short position in the S&Ps on Friday’s close, breaking a personal rule which holds that one should never stake out a new position minutes ahead of a weekend. But the temptation to augment our “don’t” bet proved irresistible, what with so many troubled-world bellwethers acting…troubled. Gold was staging for an assault on $450, bond yields were rising, bank... » Read more
March 11 2005
With bonds up and oil down, Wall Street breathed a small sigh of relief yesterday, sending the Dow Industrials moderately higher in an otherwise eventless session. Despite the rally, we still feel pretty good about our short in the S&P. There are two good reasons for this: first, we initiated the position at an unbeatable price, 1229.50; and second, Monday’s price peak in the... » Read more
March 10 2005
Exactly a month ago, just after the March bond futures made a long-term high at 117^12, I said there’d be nothing to worry about unless they fell below 109^14. At the time, a drop of that magnitude seemed pretty farfetched, especially considering that the consensus on bonds was almost unanimously bearish at the time. What a difference a... » Read more
March 09 2005
Bullion had its best day in a while, spurred by a dollar that couldn’t stand up to firming oil quotes. Comex April Gold settled at 441.00 after spiking to an intraday high just below our minimum target at 441.60, a hidden pivot. In night trading the futures were moving still higher and had touched 442.00 at press time. This should all but clinch a run-up at least to the next minor... » Read more
March 08 2005
So far so good, but it’s still way too early to be patting ourselves on the back. Yesterday we shorted the E-mini S&P contract at 1229.50, a single tick beneath what turned out to be the intraday high. In my commentary I had referred to the target as a “groundhog pivot,” since I believe it is capable of telling us whether the stock market is about to enter a bullish,... » Read more
March 07 2005
We should prepare for a potentially important market top today or tomorrow, since the S&P futures are stealing up on a crucial hidden-pivot target at 1231.75 that I first identified here in mid-February. You may recall that I subsequently adjusted the target downward to 1230.50, a hidden pivot that has... » Read more
March 03 2005
The death-spiral of shrinking volatility grows more impressive, and more ominous, each day. Has the endgame already been imagined, perhaps, by the 1981 movie... » Read more
March 02 2005
When I say “the little sonofabitch,” you all know by now which stock I’m referring to: Beazer Homes USA. We’ve tried several times to short BZH shares, and each time, we’ve been stopped... » Read more
March 01 2005
So dispiriting was yesterday’s economic news that perhaps we should view the Dow’s niggling 75-point loss as a harbinger of strength. New home sales fell 9.2% in January, personal income declined 2.3%, and auto sales went in the dumper. Despite all this, however, and even with the shares of Ford and GM off sharply, the blue chip average was never down more than about a hundred... » Read more
February 28 2005
Friday’s rally was more of a waft than a squeeze. All of the would-be sellers evidently high-tailed it to Greenwich, Nutley and Fort Lee after lunch, leaving bulls and shorts – chickens and foxes in this context – to mind the coop on Wall Street. I quit at lunchtime myself, having missed the day’s one opportunity in the S&Ps as they slipped their tether just before 2 p.m.... » Read more
February 25 2005
We bailed out of two gold stocks yesterday – Canyon Resources and Durban Roodeport Deep – with no net losses. Not too shabby, considering the latter stock at one point was probing lows 50 percent beneath the previous day’s close. It was quite a day for DROOY... » Read more
February 24 2005
Martha Stewart’s notoriety came home to roost yesterday, launching the shares of the company that still bears her name temporarily beyond the reach of gravity. What could we have been thinking when we passed up Martha Stewart Living (MSO) stock just a few months ago as it languished at less than a third of its current value, $37? Didn’t... » Read more
February 23 2005
Here’s an endearing lead from the Wall Street Journal’s Tuesday evening wrap-up: “Surging oil and a dipping dollar sent a shudder through U.S. stocks today. Though many... » Read more
February 18 2005
I recommended the purchase of Citigroup June 47.50 puts yesterday around mid-morning, but someone stepped ahead of my miserly 1.00 bid and grabbed a bunch for 1.10. I sure hope it was a Rick’s Picks subscriber, since any profits that result will at least be “in the family.”... » Read more
February 17 2005
A tough market to trade, for sure. Perhaps I should have been more careful about what I wished for? A while back, I asked The Rainmaker to give me just a little movement in the S&P futures and maybe the barest hint of a trend -- that would be enough, I thought. How was I to know that the E-mini contract would tighten down to a daily... » Read more
February 16 2005
When we think of outsourcing, it usually involves farming out mundane services and products to low-wage producers in China,... » Read more
February 15 2005
“Hey, Rick!” writes long-time subscriber Joe M. “Bob Moriarty, John Mackenzie and Jeff Kern have all given buy signals within the past few weeks, and that’s good enough for me. Could you give some possible entry points in Hecla, Vista Gold, Coeur... » Read more
February 14 2005
What caused stocks to streak higher yesterday, albeit briefly? We may never know, but it looked as though shorts were feeling each other’s pain for a little while. It was rumored that there were rumors of bin Laden’s capture, but that story has become so old by now that it’s hard to imagine traders would buy into it, literally. All morning, we’d looked diligently for an... » Read more
February 11 2005
Our hidden-pivot targeting has been extremely accurate lately, producing tradable swing points in gold and energy that worked out to the penny. In fact, recalling the targets we used this week to bottom-fish in March crude oil, Durban Roodeport Deep and Canyon Resource shares, the total error for all three issues was just a single penny.... » Read more
February 10 2005
So far, so good. We saw the Dollar Index reverse on Tuesday from within 0.02 points of a hidden-pivot target at 85.37. It subsequently traded down to 84.89 yesterday, but it’s still too early for me to assert confidently that this so-far very modest, half-point decline is the beginning of a significant downtrend. It might be, is about all I can say at the moment. The most... » Read more
February 09 2005
To the many of you who are closely attuned to gold’s vital signs, let me broach the possibility that the dollar reached a short-term top yesterday. Rick’s Picks has been bullish on the buck for the last two months and recently projected a rally top in the Dollar Index at exactly 85.37. Yesterday, this hidden-pivot was exceeded by just... » Read more
February 08 2005
The stock market got off to such a potently wretched start in 2005 that few on Wall Street seemed concerned about whether an NFL or AFL team would win the Superbowl. Not that investors who are also Eagles fans could have cared. If you’re old enough to remember the glory days of Chuck Bednarik, Maxie Baughan, and, um, Pete Gogolak, then... » Read more
February 07 2005
We had second thoughts about shorting the 30-year bond yesterday after recalling how it went berserk the last time payroll figures were released. Good thing, too, that we passed up the trade. Although Friday’s action wasn’t quite so unnerving as last month’s, the March contract still managed to cover a 1-1/2 point range in mere minutes. As a result, our rally target, a hidden... » Read more
February 04 2005
This is “take two” for today’s essay, since, as two astute readers have pointed out to your red-faced editor, the March gold contract that I featured in my commentary does not exist. In fact, as the label in the upper left-hand corner of the graph makes clear, it was the February contract that I was analyzing. This revelation still leaves me shy of my... » Read more
February 03 2005
Bond markets were relatively subdued yesterday as the Fed Open Market Committee raised the federal-funds rate for a sixth consecutive time. Perhaps traders were saving their energy for Friday, when payroll data is scheduled to be released. The last time around, on January 7, it was “Bonds Gone Wild!” The futures moved almost three... » Read more
February 02 2005
Our real-time Q&A session yesterday covered quite a bit of ground, from the XAU to cotton futures, to LEAPS and Kansas July wheat, to Korean Pohang Iron and Steel (aka Posco). I was out of the office most of the morning and therefore unable to monitor... » Read more
February 01 2005
Pictured below are two very sporty cars that changed hands over the weekend at the Scottsdale auction. The one that looks like a cross between a vintage Corvette and a Cadillac Eldorado is actually a 1954 Oldsmobile concept car. It seats two and is... » Read more
January 31 2005
The Dow Industrials would have finished the day unchanged, if not for the wallop that Merck took around mid-day. Shortly thereafter, I posted a Bloomberg article by Michael Lewis that marveled at the complacency that has seemingly kept financial markets from unraveling. Complacency was the theme of Friday’s... » Read more
January 28 2005
I’ve been increasingly eager to short this market all week, but it stubbornly refuses to roll over. Even more frustrating is that the feeble rallies that have scored marginal new highs each day have fallen just shy of hidden-pivot targets where I’d told you to get short. The S&Ps, for example. The nominal uptrend has pointed for the last couple of days to a tradeable top at... » Read more
January 26 2005
I tried to get across the message yesterday that we needn’t sit on our thumbs while waiting for the precious metals sector to come alive. Like many of you, I hold some mining stocks that I’d rather not think about at the moment, DROOY, Endeavour and Pacific Rim among... » Read more
January 25 2005
With crude prices stealing up on $50 once again and elections in Iraq just five days off, the bulls should be prepared to write this week off. For our part, we’ve been focusing on Dow and S&P targets somewhat below... » Read more
January 24 2005
February gold turned energetically higher on Friday without having quite reached the 418.70 correction target I’d advertised. As a result, the near-month contract now looks like a solid bet to reach a hidden pivot at 431.20, probably within a day or two. This scenario impelled me to put out a bulletin intraday for subscribers eager to jump aboard.... » Read more
January 21 2005
A downbeat quarterly report from eBay supposedly bummed out Wall Street the other day, but shouldn’t IBM’s stellar numbers have compensated? Apparently not, since even Big Blue itself has been having trouble resisting the bearish tide that has swept stocks lower since the beginning of the year. With a healthy increase in sales, the computer giant’s net rose 12% to a record $3.04... » Read more
January 20 2005
Using a three-tick stop-loss, we shorted T-bond futures yesterday a hair off their intraday high. That was just before they plunged nearly a full point to reverse a deceptively strong opening. It’s been a while since we traded this vehicle, and in retrospect it’s clear that the only way we could have profited would have been to short option straddles and strangles each and every... » Read more
January 19 2005
The dollar’s modest rally yesterday stalled within mere hundredths of a point of a hidden-pivot target, but don’t expect this flimsy impediment to withstand another charge. If and when it’s breached, the March dollar contract will become an odds-on bet to climb at least another two percent, putting further pressure on gold quotes that have barely managed to hold their own since... » Read more
January 14 2005
I couldn’t have imagined how blessed I was, relatively speaking, when 120 mph winds uprooted 10-foot sections of my fence a month ago and blew them all over the yard. It took me and my neighbor just a few days to fix the damage, but it will take months or even years to undo the devastation wrought by recent mudslides in... » Read more
January 13 2005
News of November’s record-breaking trade deficit sent the dollar tumbling yesterday, but don’t be surprised if investors take leave of their senses soon again and the dollar resumes its bear rally. Until Wednesday, the buck was having a pretty good year, actually, with a gain of nearly 5% against the euro. It’s a dead-cat bounce, to be... » Read more
January 12 2005
We’ve always paid close attention to the charts Beazer Homes and Citigroup, two companies that have benefited disproportionately in recent years from the Fed’s easy-credit policies. In the case of Citi, the loose lending promoted by the central bank amounted to a license to print money. And for homebuilders like Beazer, low mortgage rates and securitized debt markets have provided... » Read more
January 11 2005
Many of the issues we track moved faintly against the forecast yesterday. Gold shares showed a weak buoyancy that barely qualifies as a holding pattern – in a downtrend, to be sure -- while the dollar pulled back slightly after last week’s strong run-up. Quotes for February crude fell too, but not before cracking the $47 level for the first time since early October. The rally... » Read more
January 10 2005
Mining stocks generally rose on Friday while bullion quotes fell, but the burden of proof remained with the bulls. Price action in Comex February gold was particularly telling, since, for the second straight day, the futures trounced a hidden-pivot support – this time at 420.80 -- that should have produced a discernible bounce. Instead,... » Read more
January 07 2005
Bullion quotes finished off their lows yesterday, but not before wreaking technical damage that portends at least somewhat lower prices. We scratched a trade in the February mini-gold contract after buying precisely at a bottom that produced the day’s best bounce, albeit one that lasted for only an hour. The subsequent intraday low was... » Read more
January 06 2005
Some of you evidently can’t wait to jump on the gold stocks even though they remain in the throes of a fairly severe correction. For those eager to buy something…anything, we can greatly simplify and perhaps enhance the timing of your intended plunge by closely monitoring two mining-sector bellwethers: Newmont and the AMEX Gold Bugs... » Read more
January 05 2005
We’re off to a good start this year, even if the U.S. stock market is not. For one, we sidestepped the weakness in gold and the broad averages by taking profits in several issues before they started to fall. For two, a stock that we did buy, Cameco (CCJ), has been on a holy tear and even managed to eke out a $1.15 gain yesterday as most other stocks were falling. We took some more... » Read more
January 04 2005
Stocks reversed sharply yesterday after a gangbusters opening in nearly every sector but precious metals. Intraday, the Dow Industrials fell 139 points from high to low – a minor surprise, considering crude oil quotes were down more than $3. Bullion and most mining stocks gapped lower on the opening and continued sinking until the final... » Read more
January 03 2005
The new year has gotten off to a volatile start, with rabid reversals in numerous issues that we track and a downdraft in the precious metals sector. The latter probably has further to fall, since the Gold Bugs Index has just breached a hidden-pivot support at 210.33 that was all that stood between current levels and another hidden support 203.91, about 3 percent lower. For a look at some real-time targets, step inside for this morning's Q&A... » Read more