The lunatics are back, pushing bitcoin with the same psychotic zeal they showed blowing the 2017 bubble. I am updating with a new target at 21,032 that is based on a slightly revised rally pattern (inset). Judging from the way buyers impaled the pattern’s 12083 midpoint resistance today, it seems extremely unlikely this surge will fall short of the target. I try to avoid the use of the word ‘extremely’, but in this case my confidence that 21,032 will be achieved is close to absolute.

When I originally projected a move to 19,850, BRTI, a CME index that tracks bid/asked spreads in real time across many bitcoin markets, was trading for around 8,000. That was a little more than a week ago, and I could not have imagined at the time that we’d be halfway there so soon. I doubt that BRTI will cover the remaining distance as quickly, but if it does, it will describe a mania with a lifespan more meaningfully measured with a stopwatch than a calendar. If the Hidden Pivot resistance at 21,032 fails to stop the stampede — an outcome I regard as unlikely —  I’ll be out of good targets to share with you.

August Gold’s attempt to reverse from a morning sell-off prompted a subscriber to ask in the Rick’s Picks trading room whether bullion is already getting second wind.  I doubt it, since June’s sensational run-up was too steep to sustain and will likely require a breather of perhaps 2-3 weeks to recharge. But I do expect the uptrend to resume after a proper pullback because this month’s surge decisively exceeded clear Hidden Pivot resistances at 1412 and 1432. This is usually a reliable sign that the dominant trend will continue, and it is quite clear in this instance.  Because the pattern took ten months to play out, it would be surprising — and quite bullish — if the futures do a ‘180’ and blow past the 1432.70 peak within the next few days. Anything’s possible, so we’ll simply wait for gold to do its thing and to tell us what’s on its mind.

A homebuilder friend of mine who is also a stock-market junkie and savvy trader emailed me a dismal-looking chart of Lennar Tuesday with this bearish note: “The homies have spoken. Get short [the stock market] or miss the down move.” This guy can boast of months when he made more money presciently trading the shares of Lennar, Beazer, D.R. Horton, Pulte et al. than he did from his high-powered construction job. He even managed to tune out habitually upbeat talk in the board room and executive washroom for long enough to clean up on last year’s collapse in lumber prices.  And that is why I do not take his trading tips lightly. However, in this case the evidence he presents is so seductive that I am inclined do the opposite — i.e., embrace the seemingly absurd possibility of an imminent upsurge in residential construction. The very idea flouts my gut feeling that America will be in recession before the year ends.

Matching Epaulets

And yet, study Lennar’s chart (inset) and you can easily imagine a reverse head-and-shoulders pattern taking shape with the power to launch Lennar, and presumably other ‘homies’, significantly higher within the next four to six weeks.  I have never put much store in H&S patterns because they are virtually everywhere a trader wants to see them. But this one, with drooping epaulets that look like perfectly matched earrings, is so alluring as to confound the skeptic. We’ll probably know by mid-July whether the chart was warning of trouble or throbbing with opportunity. In the meantime, if we get another month of declining home sales, don’t scoff at the possibility of a trampoline bounce-from-nowhere in this statistic.

Here are three numbers to jot down to get an accurate and potentially useful ‘read’ on the aging bull market: 27,436, 28,738 and 33,161. These are ‘Hidden Pivot’ resistance targets for the Dow Industrials, and any one of them could stop the bull in its tracks. Each is a good place to attempt getting short with a tight stop-loss, but if the stop gets pulped, assume that the next-higher target is in play.  And if the Indoos should hit 29,000 (or so) and then plummet to the green line (24,5740), treat that not as a sign that the long-awaited bear has finally arrived, but as a great buying opportunity. Above 33,161, I have no additional targets to offer. That would be the bull’s final charge, as far as I’m concerned, and the best opportunity to get short that we might see in a very long while.

Why should you trust these numbers? For one, if you’ve followed Rick’s Picks for any length of time, you’ll know that the big-picture forecasts — for T-Bonds, gold, the U.S. dollar, interest rates,  inflation (or lack of, actually)  and major stock averages — have gotten it mostly right.  (But not always, as those of you still waiting for crude to hit $28 a barrel would be ready to attest.)  Another reason is that these sunny numbers come not from a hopped up permabull who thinks that decade-old rally will go on forever; rather, they are from someone who could give you a dozen good reasons why the Dow should be trading at 10,000 now, not heading toward 30,000 as would appear to be the case.

Bullion’s powerful rally this week has kicked this popular mining-stock vehicle into high gear. I haven’t tracked it in quite a while but aim to do so now, provided it remains feisty and interesting. In that regard, GDX looks like it’s about to ratchet up the interest-level, although not in a way we might have preferred. Notice that Thursday’s energetic short-squeeze brought the ETF within inches of a target at 25.58. This Hidden Pivot resistance can be used as a minimum upside objective for now, but don’t expect GDX to pop through it on the first try. More likely is a pullback of sufficient magnitude that you should consider taking a partial profit or doing covered writes in the range 25.42 – 25.70 if you are long.  Please note that if buyers should blow past D=25.58 with ease, that would imply that the target of a bigger pattern is in play. In this case, it would be 36.67 (!), a Hidden Pivot whose provenance goes back to a low at 12.40 recorded early in 2016. The lower target corresponds to one at 1412 for Comex August Gold that I disseminated to subscribers several weeks ago._______ UPDATE (Jun 24, 8:52 p.m.): Buyers shredded the 25.58 pivot, leaving little doubt about the underlying strength and potential of this move. _______ UPDATE (Jun 25, 8:28 p.m.): I neglected to mention an important Hidden Pivot resistance at 26.98 that can serve as a minimum upside target for the near term (i.e., the next 3-5 days).  It is the C-D midpoint tied to the 36.67 target noted above. Here’s a chart that shows it. _______ UPDATE (Jun 26, 9:42 p.m.): GDX tripped a theoretical sell signal at 25.47 that implies it will fall to at least 25.21, or possibly to 24.67, if it slips today.