Rick Ackerman

The March contract has opened 40 points lower tonight, suggesting the pros are confident they can re-energize Friday's short squeeze once the suckers who dumped market orders on the first bars are out of the way. Before this quasi-criminal operation gets under way in earnest, however, expect a retest below the 2889.25 opening bar. The 2884.00 downside target we used on Friday served us well, with many subscribers reporting big gains on the bounce, especially the initial one.  For better or worse, this week will begin without the adamantine clarity of 2884.00. On Friday, sellers bashed that Hidden Pivot support four times, exceeding it by more than a few points only once. It took four days to get there, so we shouldn't be surprised if the pivot provides support for at least another day or two -- or perhaps even longer, since we can't rule out the possibility the low will prove to be an important one. I seriously doubt THE low is in, however, since grave uncertainties surrounding the pandemic and its effects on the global economy will remain for the foreseeable future. Even so, we should be careful not to underestimate the power and longevity of short-squeeze rallies, since they are explicitly engineered to fool cocky shorts who reaped big gains on the way down into getting short again, this time to crush them good. _______ UPDATE (Mar 2, 10:16 p.m. EST): None of today's three big rally legs exceeded an external peak (see it here), so in that respect the biggest single-day point gain in history was, well...unimpressive. That doesn't mean I'm going to try to intercept the stampede with short offers every inch of the way to Kingdom Come. But when the futures plummet to new lows at some point, remember this tout. For now, I'll

Gold took an unusually vicious hit on Friday. Presumably it was gratuitous, since the plunge left intact a 1731.30 target shown in the chart (slightly adjusted from the 1732.90 objective in play since December). Why the selloff?  There was widespread suspicion that it was somehow related to the coronavirus pandemic, and although it undoubtedly was, the further details of this theory, at least to the extent they were aired in the mainstream media, were unpersuasive. My own theory is that gold, which tends to rise when shares are falling, simply couldn't keep pace inversely with last week's wholesale collapse in the stock market. Moreover, even before the avalanche, bullion prices had spiked to heights that begged for a rebuke. A Double Whammy The result was a double whammy -- a sharp but needed pullback, exacerbated by a dam of disappointment that gave way Friday morning. Despite this, April Gold's odds of achieving 1731.30 have not changed. They were around 70% before and remain so now. This implies that a pullback to the green line (1526.70) should be bought 'mechanically'. The $68 stop-loss is too big to abide, but if and when the futures hit our number, we can use 'camouflage' tactics to get on board on-the-cheap. Why aren't the odds even better? It has to do with the way buyers penetrated p=1594.90 the first time they hit it. It took a three-day pullback and a running start to get past it, then, following a correction, another six weeks to put it decisively behind.

You can relax: Bernie doesn’t have a prayer of winning. And neither does Biden. Or Bloomberg. At times it may seem as though one of these guys could actually give Trump a run for his money. Even I thought so for a brief moment. But that’s only because the gaseous delusion that is Bernie has been pumped to nebula-size by a news media and popular culture that cannot  deal with the prospect of four more years of Trump. In the meantime, the term ‘mainstream media’ has become an oxymoron, as the shoddy, shamelessly biased reportage that passes for journalism these days becomes increasingly irrelevant to any seeker of fact or truth. The pathetic remnants of the fish wrap industry are fighting for their lives, trying to survive in a country where most readers would sooner trust the National Enquirer than the New York Times, Washington Post or Los Angeles Times. Shriveling Leviathans Desperately trying to stave off bankruptcy, these shriveling leviathans have amped up the ridiculous notion that the 2020 election will be a real contest. That is what newspapers do – try to whip readers into a frenzy. Not this time, though. Try as they may, there’s not enough genuine excitement in the 2020 election to captivate even those being pandered to. Cheering “Ray-rah, Bernie!” is like pretending the Baltimore Orioles could win in October. But coronavirus stories are proving to be a weak alternative, since no one really knows how the pandemic will play out. Uncertainty and ignorance can be stretched only so thin as grist for sensational stories, even by the most inventive creators of headlines. For now, though, each and every new case that surfaces in America is being treated as a national story. “A Belleville woman was hospitalized Monday with suspected coronavirus as local health

The stock market at its most violent this week has been an easy read, just as it was when the tech sector imploded 20 years ago and during the financial collapse of 2007-08.  On the eve of today's memorable carnage the short-term charts glowered with warnings of the Dow's imminent, record-breaking plunge.  I'd predicted as much in commentary sent out the night before, along with targets for the E-Mini S&Ps that caught the exact bottom of one of the best rallies of the year. Subscribers reported getting the profitable ride of their lives in both directions. In the Rick's Picks Trading Room, where actionable ideas are shared freely 24/7, a few of them said they'd had their best day ever. In some cases this involved boarding the rally at the exact low of the first selling climax in the morning, riding it to within an inch of the mid-day peak, and then surfing the subsequent avalanche into the close. This chart shows how a Coney Island kind of day looked to traders and technicians. T-Bonds Say 'Recession' Good technical analysis frees us from the difficult task of having to cull investable facts from all the blather one hears these days about coronavirus and its potential effect on the global economy.  To take one significant example, it's possible to predict with confidence that Treasury Bonds are headed much higher. Here's the chart showing a 186^04 target for T-Bond futures that would equate to a rate on the 30-year of 1.58%. That'd be quite a slide from the current 1.78%, and it suggests the recession threat that everyone will be debating in the months ahead is already baked in the cake. By all means, jot those numbers down and share them with your financial advisor. If he goes all-in on Treasury paper,

Wednesday's Whoopee Cushion bounce trapped buyers when the short squeeze apexed around mid-session. The subsequent dive has continued into early evening and portends some tough days ahead for bulls.  I've provided some precise downside targets in my latest update for the E-Mini S&Ps, but suffice it to say that if the lower of them is achieved, the Dow would be down another thousand points. Short covering is by far the most powerful source of buying right now, and at times the only source, but with so much uncertainty about the potential economic impact of the coronavirus, bears can afford to hang back and let stocks fall.  They will continue to be squeezed from time to time, but expect them to be more discerning in the days ahead about when to hit the panic button.

Today's inverted swoon portends more downside to at least 3071.00, where an important low was recorded in early December.  Too many bulls are counting on it for support, and that's why it will be exceeded at least marginally. At that point the bearish pattern shown in this chart would become not just dominant but predictable, meaning we should expect a bounce, possibly tradeable, from p2=3053.84; and an even more likely  one from D=3011.44 exactly. The pattern is a little gnarly because its point 'A' is not obvious, and that's why I expect it to work for our usual purposes, particularly trading from either side of the market on the way down. _______ UPDATE (Feb 27, 8:22 a.m. EST): Tradestation's sometimes twitchy tool set appears to have done me out of an overnight opportunity. Although I was very careful drawing the pattern that yielded downside targets at, respectively, 3053.84 and 3011.84 (see above), I apparently wasn't careful enough. Here's a corrected chart that shows a p2 at 3055.63 that came a crucial inch closer to nailing the overnight low: https://bit.ly/396fSth The ostensibly small difference was enough to put the rABC I would have used (a=3091.00 at 5:00 am yesterday) to set up the trade just out of reach. Anyway, the corrected levels are: p2=3055.63 and D=3013.50. Prepare to be front-run at the latter -- yes, the algo chimpanzees seem to have learned one of my tricks -- when (not if) ES falls to it.______ UPDATE (Feb 27, 8:31 p.m.): Judging from reports in the trading Room today, many subscribers kicked butt as stocks plunged, visiting disaster on most investors. I've linked charts in The Morning Line with possible bottoming numbers in AAPL, T-Bond Yields and the Dow. Here's another for the E-Mini S&Ps, with a promising target at 2884.00.

The over/under bet on coronavirus is tough to handicap, given the wide range of opinions about how far and fast the disease will spread.  Some supposed experts evidently think as many as 30 million people could die. President Trump, on the other hand, says everything is under control and not to worry, at least about America. My own expert, a Berkeley-based epidemiologist, says you needn't be concerned about catching it yourself if you don't travel. Airports and airplanes are literally where the virus takes wing, but if you stay put in your own little town/hamlet/city, there is no reason for concern, he says. A Three-Day Rarity Unless, perhaps, you own shares in United, American or any other carrier that does a lot of long-haul flying. The stock market has taken quite a hit already, having finally come up against a wall of worry it could not scale in mere hours. Shares fell Tuesday for the third consecutive day, an occurrence so rare that you need to pore over charts with a magnifying class to find another instance of this over the past eighteen months.  The S&P 500 Index tripped a signal to get short on Monday, but in the space of just one day it was closing on the first profit-taking level we'd advised, 3096. The actual sell signal came at 3245 -- exactly 148 points, or 4.3%, below the all-time high at 3393 achieved just a week ago.  If the S&Ps were to fall all the way to the 2800 target shown in the chart, that would amount to a 17.4% drop -- 2.6 percentage points shy of bear-market territory. Will this happen? Almost certainly. The bull market has not had a 20% correction in more than a decade, so it is long overdue. No more perfect opportunity to

Pay no mind to reports that a big player unloaded $3 billion worth of gold contracts into Monday's tidal surge in bullion, knocking quotes down by $37 before the session ended. In the first place, we were ready for this 'surprise', since the intraday high at 1691.70 occurred less than a dollar from an important rally target I'd begun drum-rolling several weeks ago. More significant is that at its peak, the upthrust slightly exceeded a midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance associated with a D target at 2285.90. This is shown in the chart, and although it will take a more decisive penetration of p=1666 to put D solidly in play, gold's strength over the near term is likely to feed off a stock-market selloff that has farther to go.  If and when the futures blow past 1666, institutional whales like Monday's big seller in gold will be powerless to stop it. _______ UPDATE (Feb 25, 6:35 p.m. EST):  Although gold has given up $60 of its recent gains in the last two days, sellers have had to work hard to pull it down to bargain levels. This feels bullish, as does the tentative bounce the April contact took from the 1629.50 Hidden Pivot support shown in the chart. Let's see how well the good guys perform today. If they can push the futures above the 1666.70 point 'c' of the pattern shown in the chart, they'll be back in the driver's seat. _____ UPDATE (Feb 26, 8:28 a.m.): Gold is timid today, down $15 at the moment and acting spooked by a patently phony, feeble rally overnight in index futures. It will turn around only if and when stocks dive anew. The good news is that they have MUCH further to fall before they achieve the 20% correction 'required' to qualify

AAPL's spectacular swan dive has created a very powerful impulse leg on the daily chart -- one that bulls are unlikely to recoup quickly via the usual, raucous short-squeeze. There will be vicious squeezes nonetheless, but the more violent they are, the more effectively we can use Hidden Pivot levels to get in and out of trades. This was a salient feature of the dot-com crash two decades ago, and I doubt it has fundamentally changed. Looking just ahead, you can use this chart to get a handle on the stock's behavior, however erratic. We'll pay particular attention to 'mechanical' set-ups -- not necessarily to trade them, but to give us an additional edge over other market forecasters. _______ UPDATE (Feb 25, 6:43 p.m. EST): After selling off steeply, the stock bounced from within an inch of the 285.53 midpoint Hidden Pivot support shown in the chart. I doubt the rally will get legs, but we'll have to wait and see. If it relapses and takes out the pivot, the 267.82 'D' target with which it is associated would be in play. _____ UPDATE (Feb 27, 8:47 p.m.): Here's how that 267.82 target looks on a chart. I like it even more now than I did two days ago. _______ UPDATE (Feb 28, 7:05 a.m.): AAPL has overshot the 267.82 target by a whopping $4 so far.  At first I though this might be because the company is more exposed than most to coronavirus, which is true. That explanation won't wash, however, since I've always maintained here that stocks drive the news rather than the other way around. When I redrew AAPL's bearish ABC pattern so that it follows the coordinates I used to nail the overnight lows in the Mini-Dow and the E-Mini S&Ps precisely, however, I come up