The chart shows yet one more reason to think the stock market is at a potentially important top. This is a somewhat different view from the one featured here earlier, which used a lower point ‘A’ to project a major top at the pattern’s p2 ‘secondary pivot’. The new graph seems more logical in retrospect, since it captures a potential top at a ‘D target rather than at a secondary resistance. As to getting short at these levels using the futures contract, we’d have suffered three weeks of Chinese water torture, since the March contract first got close enough to D to tempt a short on December 8. The rally that followed a sharp pullback from there would have spooked most bears out of their positions, but anyone bold enough to stay the course would have suffered a seven-day flogging from head-butting at the ‘hidden’ resistance. Better to draw a bead on some way-out-of-the-money put butterfly spreads in QQQ as we have done than to have this sonofabitch ratchet another 200-300 points against us while it disembowels the very last, hardiest bears. ______ UPDATE (Dec 28, 5:49 p.m.): Unlike its QQQ sibling, this lunatic bait did not merely poke above a clear Hidden Pivot target at 12741, it punched well past it and then closed near the intraday high. This is ugly and unnecessary from a bear’s perspective and will require shifting our minimum target to 13555 by lowering point ‘A’ a skoch. We can still hope, nonetheless, and however briefly, that the futures suffer a massive coronary at p2=12829, the pink line in the chart that has so far contained today’s rally. _______ UPDATE (Dec 29, 743 p.m.): A two-day close above p2=12829 would meet our standards for a bullish breakout. Let’s see if the keister bandits who run this gaff can pull off this not-too-demanding feat. ______ UPDATE (Dec 30, 7:04 p.m.): The futures have closed for a second straight day above 12829, but only by a hair. I’m literally not buying it, and neither should you. Let’s see if this hoax can tiptoe through next week with the prospect of an unprecedented political upheaval in prospect.
NQH21 – March E-Mini Nasdaq (Last:12854)