AMZN has taken a big leap in after-hours trading, impelled by an announcement from Jeff Bezos that Prime membership recently exceeded 100 million. Remember when McDonald’s sold its hundred-millionth hamburger?  Who knew that that number would eventually pale in comparison to the countless billions of burgers Mickey D would sell in the years and decades that followed?  Amazon would seem to be on the same track, destined to have every man, woman and child on Earth enrolled as a paid Prime member. Speaking as one myself, I’d rate it one of the best values out there.  I use the service so intensively, most particularly for free shipping, that I can’t fathom how Bezos makes money on me. Maybe he isn’t — that, as the old joke goes, he loses a little bit on each transaction but makes up for it with…volume!

The stock is currently trading $48 above Wednesday’s closing price, which was $24 above Tuesday’s closing price. Although the rally seems likely to adrenalize the broad averages, it raises serious doubts about whether the stock market can keep up with with AMZN’s not infrequent wilding sprees.  Probably not.  But as I have continued to emphasize, the stock market can do no worse than move sideways as long as the shares of the world’s most economically important company are moving higher.  Most immediately, if AMZN can exceed the 1576.65 peak labeled in the chart, it will shorten the odds of a further rally to new all-time highs. In fact, my minimum upside target at the moment, based on the Hidden Pivot Method, is actually higher than that: 1592.23. (Bulletin: Pivoteers may notice that the stock generated a ‘mechanical’ buy signal moments ago with a swoon to the green line.) I am skeptical that this kind of craziness can continue for much longer, and that is why I will be monitoring AMZN’s technical vital signs closely for subtle evidence of a top.  It is a truism that every bear market has begun with a tiny, downtrending abc pattern on the one-minute chart. As long as we stay focused on the lesser charts, we cannot be fooled for long, nor are we likely to get trapped when They finally pull the plug._______ UPDATE (April 19, 6:07 p.m. EDT): AMZN’s canny sponsors opened the stock on a short-squeeze gap that peaked at 1568.52, an inch shy of the 1576.65 benchmark flagged above. The pullback was shallow, so we should expect another attempt overnight or on Friday.________ UPDATE (April 22, 5:04 p.m.) Buyers spent the week lazily building a modest hump atop the 1528  midpoint Hidden Pivot shown. This is bullish, but not very. Although it has put the pattern’s 1704.49 target theoretically in play, the implication is that AMZN will be in no hurry to get there. A pullback to the green line (1440.78) would trip a mechanical buy signal, but we’ll wait until it happens before we decide how to leverage it.