Rick Ackerman

Paying close attention to AAPL is still the best way to know exactly what's on the tiny brains of portfolio managers. Lately they have been acting as though the company can do no wrong. That's arguable, but even if they are mistaken it doesn't mean we should get in the stock's way. To the contrary, numerous Rick's Picks subscribers reported cashing out of profitable bullish positions that had been predicated on a run-up to at least 309.16. The stock hit that Hidden Pivot Thursday on a manic short-squeeze leap at the opening, then spent the rest of the day doing the hokey-pokey with it. There is however yet another target slightly above, at 314.28, and I'll be more than a little surprised if AAPL simply blows past it.  It comes from a clear and compelling ABCD pattern that is shown in the chart accompanying the AAPL tout below. (I've made this graph publicly available so that non-subscribers can see the enlarged version by clicking on it.) I have continued to emphasize the importance of getting Apple right, because as long as the company's shares are moving higher, the broad averages cannot but move with it. That being the case, we should pay close attention to price action when -- not if -- the stock hits my benchmark. If this happen in the final 15 or so minutes of Friday's session, I'll be taking home a few cheap puts over the weekend, since you never know.

Friday's steep slide created a robustly bullish impulse leg on the intraday charts that points to as low as 1537.50 over the near term. The futures will have a chance to bounce from 1550.70, a midpoint pivot that you can use to bottom-fish or buy with an rABC set-up. Any lower, especially if the pivot is decisively exceeded, would open a path to the lower target. It's also possible buyers will turn things around without the February contract having reached p. However, that would have no bullish implications until such time as the rally exceeds the 1579.70 'external' peak I've used as the pattern's point 'A'. _____ UPDATE (Jan 9, 11:18 a.m. EST): Panicky sellers drove gold $14 lower in under 30 minutes early Thursday morning, touching a low at 1541.00 that missed my target by $3.50. A subsequent rally to the green line tripped a 'mechanical' short predicated on a 1537.50 target that is still viable. It would take a print  at 1562.50 for bulls to turn things around. _______ UPDATE (Jan 9, 11:35 a.m.): Urgent! Here is yet a further update for gold -- a chart that you can use as a road map for the next 2-3 days. _______ UPDATE (Jan 9, 9:12 p.m.): The short-term outlook has dimmed further with the slow descent toward key support at p=1542.20 (click on the link immediately above to see this). A close beneath it would shorten the odds of further slippage to at least p2=1531.30, or possibly even the 1520.50 target shown in the chart linked in today's earlier update.

This one's just for fun and educational purposes: shorting a stock that has wreaked more damage on bears than any squeeze I can recall. Ever. The chart shows a well defined rally target at precisely 510.14, and it is there that we will attempt to intercept the stock, at least on paper. I'll suggest an rABC set-up with the following coordinates on the 60-minute chart: A=435.31 (12/27 at 10:30 a.m. EST); B= 402.08 (12/31); and C= yet to be determined. C will of course migrate higher and become a moving target as TSLA ascends toward 510.14, but I would suggest pulling the trigger on a relapse to X only after TSLA has traded 508.90 [note: corrected from 497.60] or higher. In this case we'll assume a second attempt, and even a third, if the position gets stopped out.  On the first try, cover 100% of it at p. But if another opportunity trade materializes (irrespective of whether the first has produced a profit or loss), take half off at p, 25% at p2, and the last 25% at D.  Initial theoretical risk for these trades would be about $3300 on 400 shares. The potential gain on try #1 is $3300; and on try 2, about $6000. If the position is stopped out for a profit on #1 and the second try gets to D, the gain would be around $9300. _______ UPDATE (Jan 12, 10:14 p.m. EST): The rally sputtered out at 498.49, denying us a chance to get short at the promising Hidden Pivot resistance identified above. We'll back away for now. _______ UPDATE (Jan 13, 15:55 p.m.): TSLA's pop through so clear a target as 510.14 borders on psychotic. No rABC trade has triggered, but I am no longer recommending the short. Note: When a stock blows past

Only subtle nuances remain to be added to our rABC arsenal at this point, but it is becoming clearer with each session how easy it is to make money with these set-ups, even when forcing trades. Toward the end of the lesson we looked at a way to trade a relatively small account using UBER, which sells for a mere $34 a share. You could trade four round lots all day long without pushing a margined account above the $8000 threshold. An additional attraction is that UBER and LYFT are supposedly talking about merging - a story that, whether true or false, will push both stocks higher for the foreseeable future. With a 'guaranteed' bullish bias and the wind at your back, you will not have to look quite so hard for perfect rABC entry set-ups. Moreover, if you find consistent success with the stock, you could conceivably scale up your size so that you're trading 2000 or more shares at a crack. Do the math and you'll see why this can produce more than just pin money for the household.

Reliable patterns have been hard to come by because the rally from early December's low produced no distinctive corrections. I've settled on one that's good enough for government work, however, in order to extrapolate the 3326.25 target shown. The midpoint pivot at 3253.63 can serve in the meantime as a minimum upside objective, since the futures have already tripped a theoretical buy signal at x=3217.31. I've noted in The Morning Line that although we cannot know for certain whether Iran's attack on a U.S. airbase in Iraq will trigger all-out war, it seems unlikely, especially given that the missiles were not targeted on the military base housing most Americans. The attack has temporarily unnerved traders, but look for day-session pros to handle the excitement with more cool. _____ UPDATE (Jan 8, 8:57 p.m.): A powerful rally has unfolded as predicted, adding a whopping 87 points to Tuesday's low. The 3326.25 target is well in play and a good bet to be reached, given the strong initial thrust through p=3253.63. Additional resistance could be felt at p2=3289.94. _______ UPDATE (Jan 12, 10:19 p.m.) Last week's stab brought the futures to within three points of p2=3289.94. If a second-wind rally pops through it in the days ahead, that will make more upside to at least 3326.00 more likely. ______ UPDATE (Jan 13, 5:14 p.m.): The futures have poked slightly above p2 in after-hours trading, but they'll need to break free of its gravity, meaning exceed it by 3-5 points intraday, to make 3326.25 an odds-on bet. A two-day close above it would work, too. _______ UPDATE (Jan 14, 10:19 p.m.):  After today's extremely tiresome price action, let's raise the bar, stipulating that the futures trade a least 10 points above p2=3289.94 before we ratchet up our bullish bias for day trading. ______

Stocks are getting pummeled Tuesday night following an Iranian missile attack on a U.S. military base in Iraq.  Index futures are down more sharply than they would have been if the story had broken during the regular session. But with the second- and third-stringers working the trade desks and an absence of liquidity, they had no choice but to let stocks fall as steeply as possible without having to buy too much of it on the way down.  Whether the attack turns out to be the start of World War III remains to be determined, but my hunch is that traders will take the optimistic view and reverse the onslaught shortly. Cautious Targeting In the excitement, February Gold spiked above a 1605.90 target we've been using since December 12, when the futures tripped a buy signal at $1491. Tonight's towering high at 1613.30 has been followed by a selloff to 1592.20 so far, but we should expect bulls to hold their own over the next few days as Wall Street feigns sufficient nervousness and concern to appease the news media.  If Iran continues to attack, perhaps even killing an American, that would likely be sufficiently disturbing to push gold above tonight's peak. However, Iran apparently recognizes the danger of trying this, since its fusillade reportedly did not target American troops. They can be such nice guys when they know how easy it would be for the U.S. to bomb their power supply into oblivion. The mullahs could turn out to be paper tigers -- and wouldn't that be bullish for the world! _______ UPDATE (Jan 8, 10:05 p.m. EST): Hey, guys, let's not overdo it! Ebullient buying has goosed the Dow 750 points above lows recorded Tuesday night. A corresponding selloff in gold has been equally extreme, shaving $60 from

Index futures have opened Sunday night with subdued selling that has yet to test Friday's lows. This suggests there are more bargain hunters around at the moment than panic-stricken sellers. However, DaBoyz are surely distributing as much stock as they can in order to handle the onslaught of market-order 'sells' that are likely to materialize at the opening. As always, a decisive breach of the midpoint pivot, where selling has currently stalled, will imply more downside over the near term to at least D=3189.50. Any bounce from near that number should be regarded as a possible 'counterintuitive' buying opportunity. _______ UPDATE (Jan 6, 10:19 p.m. EST): Short-covering intensified as the day wore on and was continuing into the night session. The point 'A' low of the pattern shown is weak, but it's all we've got right now to project a target at 3310.50. Let's see first how buyers do at the midpoint resistance, p=3258.63, my minimum upside projection for the near term, before we try to judge how likely 3310.50 is to be achieved, and how soon.

I had 'crowdsourced' GDX to subscribers who trade it avidly, but I'll step up my technical coverage because of a cautionary post by a veteran bullion trader in the Rick's Picks Coffee House. For what it's worth, price action in GDX relative to Hidden Pivot levels has been unambiguously bullish, most recently with last week's impulsive pop on the daily chart above the 29.58 'external' peak of September 24. The chart projects minimum upside to at least p=31.33, and although the move may be other than straightforward, the target looks like an odds-on bet to be achieved at the moment.  I'd suggest buying call options or stock only off rABC patterns or at targeted correction lows. For real-time guidance, tune to the chat room -- or better yet, consider being a guide yourself if you trade this vehicle and understand the entry set-ups noted above. _____ UPDATE (Jan 6, 10:31 p.m. EST): The last four sessions have begun with bull-trap spikes, but if this is distribution, GDX has so far refused to die. My minimum target is still 31.33, and the presumptive rally to that number is sloppier already than I had imagined when I wrote above that it would not be straightforward. It's worse than that, actually, since the miners barely budged with gold futures holding firm in the early going on Monday. We shouldn't expect much help from the Ayatollah, since the stock market has already thumbed its nose at the threat of a global outbreak of terrorism. _______ UPDATE (Jan 8, 9:15 p.m.): A pullback to the green line (27.21, stop 25.97) would set up an attractive 'mechanical' buying opportunity for a shot at 30.90, at least. Trading Room denizens may be able to improvise a less-risky rABC entry that would use A=28.11 (12/11, daily chart), so

Critics of the air strike last week that took out Iran's top general stopped just short of saying he deserved better.  Even the partisan hacks at CNN and MSNBC dared not push too hard against official reports that Iran was planning to step up attacks on U.S. military bases and diplomatic outposts.  The Democrats' main concern is that Soleimani's assassination could lead to war -- or to restate this more accurately, to an escalation of a war that has been simmering since the days of Jimmy Carter. The pollsters as always will be looking in all of the wrong places for signs that Pelosi, Schumer and the Somalian wing of Congress are right, that we should live in dread of retaliation rather than celebrate the death of a man who exported jihad to the world and who was singularly responsible for the death or dismemberment of many hundreds of U.S. soldiers. Could anyone, even Trump's most vehement foes, actually believe Soleimani's thirst for American blood and his ability to inspire murder and mayhem in the name of Islam were at an end? Why would so successful an evildoer not have been planning more attacks?  The President was right to order his execution, and arguments to the contrary seem unlikely to gain traction with the American public. Who's the Bully? That won't stop the news media from trying, though, and we can expect them to treat the Ayatollah's threats with the utmost deference. But as fears begin to recede, with the possibility that Iran is revealed not only as powerless but mortally vulnerable to stepped-up U.S. reprisals, look for business to return to normal.  What an epiphany that would be for those who have regarded America as the bully in the relationship between the two countries! How will we know when