The bull market has been chugging along for more than ten years, so there’s little point in pretending we can know precisely where or when it will end. However, neither should we ignore the fact that the Dow, having traded as high as 27,399, is mere millimeters from a key ‘Hidden Pivot’ resistance at 27,463.  As a practical matter, because this is a logical place for a top of at least middling importance to form, we can lay in a small put position just to have a horse in the race.  Tune to the Rick’s Picks Trading Room for more-detailed guidance in the week ahead. We’ll be looking to buy a small quantity of put options with 3-4 weeks left on them and which sell for 0.80 or less. Use 274.42 for a target in DIA, since it is closely equivalent to the one at 27,463 given above. _______ UPDATE (Jul 24, 7:47 pm.): Nibbling on some puts. Check my 19:42 Wednesday post in the chat room for details.

For years, gold’s corrections have been brutal, and that is why many erstwhile bulls have not rushed to buy this rally. They have instead been waiting for a nasty pullback in order to load up at bargain prices. But Mr Market has not obliged. Instead, retracements have been shallow and rallies steep. The latter have often occurred after-hours, but in one recent instance via a trampoline bounce early in the day.

By playing hard-to-get, gold is showing the most encouraging signs we have seen in a long, long while. This evening the August Comex futures have uncorked a 25-pointer, impaling a midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance at 1444.40 that is tied to a 1504.00 target first identified here weeks ago.  That is my minimum upside objective at the moment and it should be yours as well if you trade this vehicle. If you want to see how some pros are boldly trading the move so far using GDX call options, stop by the Rick’s Picks Trading Room. You can access it by taking a free two-week trial subscription. Simply provide your name and email address at the top of the home page and you will have instant access to the entire site. No credit card is necessary.

We have a sequence of rally targets at 205.51, 209.18 and 216.08 to keep us in stride with the bullish herd, but there’s an alternative picture that deserves caution. Notice that AAPL has rallied back to the green line after falling beneath the midpoint Hidden Pivot support at 174.20, producing a valid signal to get short ‘mechanically’ at 194.75 (stop 215.31). The signal is weak, however, because the dip to around 170 did not quite get down to our sweet spot near 164, and that’s why I am not recommending the trade. Regardless, the signal itself is reason not to get too comfortable with the idea that a push toward 2018’s record high at 233 is inevitable. _______ UPDATE (Jul 8, 3:44 p.m. ET): Friday’s 205.08 high came within a millimeter of the first of our three targets, 205.51, so consider it fulfilled. AAPL underscored the accuracy and importance of the target by plummeting $7 since. _______ UPDATE (Jul 22, 6:30 p.m.): A short-squeeze popped the stock above a tedious accumulation range, and it should now be presumed bound for at least 209.18, the second target in the sequence identified here more than three weeks ago. Keep in mind the each can be used to initiate a tightly stopped short.

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 — and I do NOT expect this resistance to give way easily, if at all —  I’ll be out of good targets to share with you._______ UPDATE (Jun 27, 5:23 p.m.): Finally, a correction painful enough to rebuke bulls, especially if it lasts for a few more days. They’ll be back, for sure, but many are undoubtedly hanging on, or buying the dip, in expectation of the next explosive rally. They have little to fear if my 21,032 target is to be reached, a prospect that I regard as 90% likely. In the meantime, if the pullback continues to 7609 (shown as a green line in this chart), that would trigger a very enticing ‘mechanical’ buy, stop 3133, for a shot at 21,032. Initial theoretical risk would be $4,476 per bitcoin, and I am not recommending the trade unless you have an account with at least $500,000 in it.  Otherwise, you can trade fractional bitcoins via a Coinbase pro account, as suggested by our resident bitcoin expert, Formula 432, in the Ricks Picks trading room.

Rates on the Ten-Year T-Note are positioned to rally in the way we might expect of a ‘counterintuitive’ trade set-up. Yields have come down to test the support of a 2.03% low made in 2017, and it should hold for at least a short while. But because the weakness of the last two weeks somewhat exceeded the 2.11% target we’d been using as a minimum downside objective, any bounce from these levels, or perhaps from slightly below 2.03%, is likely to be merely corrective of the larger downtrend begun last autumn. There could be a ‘CI’ trade in the offing (see chart inset), so stay tuned if you’re interested. _______ UPDATE (Jun 20, 11:33 p.m. ET): Assuming the 1.97% low holds, a rally in yields to 2.28% would trip the ‘CI’ buy signal noted above. Here’s the chart. ______ UPDATE (Jul 2, 5:43 p.m.): The rally in Ten-Year rates was short-lived and now they appear headed down to at least 1.944%. Any lower would put a 1.87% target in play.