August 2009

Crude quotes have risen 65 percent from last winter's lows near $44, but all of the action has taken place beneath a key resistance peak at _____ recorded just after Halloween. That's the number to beat, but until it happens we should regard the effort as no more than a strong bear rally. More immediately, there's a key midpoint support -- formerly resistance -- at ______ that we can use as a minimum objective for a pullback from these levels. It would be invalidated by a print above 72.84.

Da Boyz have goosed the dollar exuberantly Sunday night, creating bullish impulse legs on all of the intraday charts, though not yet on the daily. That would take a print at 80.90, although bears are already on the run because of where the rally originated -- i.e., from a whipsaw low that fell just beneath last December's watershed bottom at 77.69.

Teeter-totter action characterized Sunday night's tedium, although it's worth mentioning that our favorite stock, Goldman Sachs, fell short on its most recent  leap. A warning sign, perhaps?

Gold's breach of a minor midpoint support at 958.00 om Friday implies moderate weakness down to as low as ____ over the near term. That's a Hidden Pivot support, and it should be viewed as a low-risk buying opportunity. Bid there with a ____ stop-loss if the chance arises. Alternatively, a pop above _____ would create a bullish impulse leg on the lesser charts, turning the minor trend back to bullish.

Friday's short squeeze to 1016.00 left an unachieved rally target at 1019.25 that is still valid in theory. This hints of at least mild weakness to come, although there is no predicting Monday morning's mood. If there is selling, it would not become threatening unless the low recorded on July 31 at 978.25 is exceeded to the downside.  Night owls looking to get long Sunday using camouflage will need a choppy ascent that appears to struggle its way past the _____ peak made on the way down on Friday. It is visible on the 3-minute chart.

The stock market's powerful bear rally, now five month's old, has fed on false hopes and delusional thinking, but it is unlikely to survive the coming collapse of the Obama presidency. Mr. Obama's once-overwhelming popularity, though ebbing, has so far survived the voters' growing discontent with his policies. However, disapproval is mounting, even on the political left, and it's going to reach critical mass once the president's ill-conceived plan for a government takeover of the healthcare system has gone down in flames. He will become a lame-duck president after less than a year in office, leaving the country rudderless at a time when the economy and financial system are desperately in need of a firm hand or at least the appearance that someone is in command. Investors had better prepare for the inevitable darkening of America's mood, since its effect on the stock market will not be pretty. It is often said that Wall Street abhors nothing so much as uncertainty, but this will be far worse - a plunge into despair or even chaos that will make the nation's depressing wallow during the Carter years seem sunny in comparison.  His Brazen Lie Concerning Obamacare, its failure to gain traction goes much deeper than Hillarycare's abortive flop in 1993, early in Clinton's term. In the interim, healthcare costs have inflated so horrifically that Americans have become desperate for relief. For businesses and individuals alike, health care has become increasingly unaffordable, and all of us are paying much more each year for less coverage. That should have made socialized health care an easy sell. Instead, Obama chose to remake the system so radically and so ambitiously that almost no one believes him when he says that it won't cost us - except for "the rich" -- any more than we are paying

Rick waxed bullish on gold -- and bearish on Obama -- in a recent interview with radio host Al Korelin. Here’s the link.

Bank Pay Outrageous, But Is That Recovery? Assuming Americans still have the capacity for outrage, they should be rioting in the streets following last week’s reports that nine big banks paid out $33 billion in bonuses in 2008. The Wall Street Journal put this travesty in perspective, noting that the bonuses were a third larger than California’s budget deficit. “Six of the nine banks paid out more in bonuses than they received in profit,’ the Journal reported, and “one in every 270 employees at the banks - [a total of 5,000 employees] –received more than $1 million.”... Read the Rest of the Article | Comments *** Bear Rally Looks Eager to Recharge The S&P 500 Index played footsies with the 1000 barrier yesterday, but bears looking eagerly for a major top shouldn’t rely too heavily on the stopping power of this benchmark. One reason is that Dow 10,000, a marquee number with greater importance, is still 700 points away. We should also mention that at yesterday’s closing price of 9286, the Indoos lay almost 200 points shy of a 9476 target that we flagged a while back as a minimum rally objective. There is also Goldman Sachs, a favorite bellwether of ours that we’ve been... Read the Rest of the Article | Comments *** Are You Ready for the Gold Rush? Last week, I explained why junior and exploration gold-mining stocks will be spectacular investments in the impending 21st Century gold rush. I will discuss specific stocks in the weeks ahead, but first let’s talk about how to accumulate them.  Because juniors are quite different from other stocks, the best approach to building a portfolio is to stick with a game plan formulated in advance.  For starters, you should look for stocks of companies that hold the most resources or have the greatest

The futures showed surprising resilience yesterday, considering that bulls (and bears) got sandbagged on a gap-up opening.  It was predictable that the bulls would fail to recover fully from the blow, since they came in all fired up on the heels of a two-day correction.  However, we might have expected their losses for the day to be larger, since the reversal was so swift and punitive, coming as it did in the oprning minutes of the session, and off a fleeting high above Wednesday's.  All in all, I see latent strength here, even if the futures have to come down to a Hidden Pivot at ____ today -- six points beneath yesterday's low -- to base for the next short-squeeze. If, instead, they hit _____ first, that would imply buyers are likely to carry the day -- and the week -- with a push to as high as _____ (a Hidden Pivot).