Apologies. As the bull market has ground on endlessly, I might have provided you with a precise target for the elusive Mother of All Tops. Instead, what I’ve done in recent months is pussyfoot with relatively minor rally targets of limited value. Can you blame me for hoping that one of these little pishers would eventually nail the summit of a runaway bull badly in need of a rebuke? So far, as you will have noticed, I’ve had only limited success. However, I will warrant that the 3095.19 target for the S&P 500 shown in the chart (click on inset) is a decent bet to call THE top. I will be betting on it, and so should you, especially if you are a permabear who sees hellfire as the only remedy for a stock market that long ago lost its connection to reality. If you are a permabull you can bet on it too — by trading more aggressively than you might otherwise until the target is reached.
What is most striking about the chart shown in the inset is that it is so similar to one labeled ‘My Epiphany’ in the PowerPoint presentation I use to teach the Hidden Pivot Method. Click here to compare the two. Regarding the epiphany, it came in 2004. I was very bearish then as always, and I viewed the stock market as being in a multi-year topping process. However, this didn’t jibe with what the Hidden Pivot Method was telling me. I’d developed the system exactly for this situation. It gave me a mechanically objective tool to supplant gut feelings that were often wrong at key turning points. By focusing solely on the charts, I was able to see not only that the broad averages were not in a topping process, but that they were headed much higher.
15 Years of Practice
Despite my newfound clarity of mind, I continued to write very bearish think-pieces for Barron’s, the San Francisco Examiner and other publications. Making grim predictions is a habit that has continued to this day. But readers of my Examiner column would not have guessed that the forecasting and trading side of my life was bullish as all get-out, nor that I was predicting an imminent rally of 3200 points in the Dow Average. And now, the benefit to you of my 15-year learning curve is that I am confident in the 3095 target, even allowing for the fact that my merely saying this is probably hubris enough to queer the prediction in some way.
In any event, you should jot down the number 3095.19. If you want to know how to derive it yourself — a cheap parlor trick that anyone can learn, as I am wont to tell subscribers — click here to learn Three Secrets of the Hidden Pivot Method. _______ UPDATE (May 7, 10:15 p.m.): This week’s selloff has had no effect on the odds of D=3095 being reached, although the short-term trend has flipped to bearish with the creation today of a bearish impulse leg on the daily chart. Traders please note: A further, hellacious plunge to x=2815.50 would trip an enticing ‘mechanical’ buy signal, stop 2721.00. _______ UPDATE (May 13, 12:15 p.m.): The mechanical entry has been triggered at 2815, but I’ve suggested paper-trading this one via the June E-Mini S&Ps, since the initial risk is $4750 per contract.