Rick Ackerman

Gold has disappointed and bullyragged its most devoted fans for more than three months, but it could become an enticing speculative buy as it approaches a key low at 1418.90 recorded back in August. The bearish pattern shown is not the largest among several alternatives, but it shows promise nonetheless to deliver a tradeable bounce at or very near the pattern's 1440.00 target.  I'd prefer to initiate the trade via an rABC pattern, since that's probably the least risky way to catch the falling javelin.  If so, we'll look at using A=1465.40 (from 12/3 at 2:00 a.m.) Stay tuned, however, since the set-up will depend on how easily the downtrend achieves 1440.00, assuming it does. ______ UPDATE (Dec 10, 9:12 a.m. EST): The futures are rallying  moderately even though the S&Ps are slightly higher. This is unusual, so we'll give bulls the slight benefit of the doubt. You can use this pattern to trade the move. _______ UPDATE (Dec 12, 9:07 p.m.): Zzzzzzzz. _______ UPDATE (Dec 11, 10:52 p.m.): The pop through p=1478.10 has made the February contract a good bet to reach the 1493.10 target shown. If there's a pullback to X=1470.50 first, ideally in the first half of the session, it would trigger a mechanical buy, stop 1462.90. _______ UPDATE (Dec 12, 11:23 p.m.): How's that for nasty? Even so, based on reports in the Trading Room, subscribers who got long for a shot at the 1493.10 target got out with a nice profit before the futures reversed precipitously. From a high just $1.50 shy of my target, they dove $36. Overall, the price action was neither bullish nor bearish, just nutty. Gold appears to be biding its time until the stock market cools off and the chimps turn their attention to 'risk-on.' ________ UPDATE (Dec 30, 5:47

We're living in interesting times, especially investors. The stock market is in its steepest climb in years, reminiscent of dot-com mania; and yet, individual shareholders have been withdrawing their money at the fastest pace in decades. Do the little guys know something that portfolio managers don't?  Wall Street's geniuses have been raking in outlandish fees for targeting a handful of high-flying stocks with Other People's Money (OPM). The perpetual-motion machine works simply because, try as the little guys might to get off the speeding train, their cash remains tied up in the game anyway. For instance, if one makes payments to a mortgage lender or a life insurance company, the cash doesn't just sit idle; DaBoyz keep it working 24/7, whether in FAANG stocks, Bolivian reverse floaters, repos, junk paper -- you name it. Give the feather merchants a dollar and in just a few months' time they will multiply it tenfold. Just imagine the leverage they extracted from Trump's trillion-dollar stimulus -- the one that some evidently still believe was "tax reform." Brace for More Insanity The money multiplier was on steroids last week as stocks reversed a stumble on Tuesday and began ratcheting higher. The move turned explosive on Friday when we learned that the economy created more jobs than expected. The funny thing is, most major news outlets had actually predicted the number would come in significantly above official estimates. Can you believe that this con-game, which is as old as the stock market, actually worked, and that it worked so beautifully? We're all suckers, it would seem, since we are desperate to believe the con. And who cares whether most of the jobs were at the low end of the food chain? Distribution hubs in the Sunbelt were busing in workers like lettuce-pickers in order to

AAPL remains an excellent proxy for the bull market, so perhaps it’s a good time to look at its intraday charts, the better to judge whether December’s shaky start portends more trouble. My gut feeling is that the weakness will pass, if it hasn’t already, and that both the stock and the broad averages will soon be banging out new record highs. This scenario will become more likely if AAPL blows past the 266.11 midpoint Hidden Pivot shown in the chart to end the week. That would put it on track for a shot at D=269.55 next week, and, presumably, generate corresponding strength in the broad averages. A rendezvous with D could provide us with more information, but I expect sufficient resistance there to set up a potential ‘reverse-ABC’ short. Stay tuned to the Trading Room for timely guidance. _______ UPDATE (Dec 6, 1:49 p.m. EST): Short-covering at the opening sent AAPL into a lunatic spasm that not only demolished the 266.11 midpoint resistance, but continued higher, eventually reaching and then surpassing the 269.55 target. When it did, I put out a new target at 270.94 (“not rocket science”) in the Trading Room that appears to have stopped the rally cold.  AAPL has since fallen $1.04 (!) after peaking at 271.00, six cents above my target.  _______ UPDATE (Dec 8, 5:10 p.m.): We still hold eight 280 calls with a cost basis of 0.16 that expire on Friday. Offer half of them to close for 0.62, good through Tuesday. _______ UPDATE (Dec 11, 11:14 p.m.):  The uptrend has been steady but not steep enough to revive our calls. We'll play the hand we've got rather than speculate on more expiring options.  Use 274.18 (60-min,  A=261.74 on 12/4)  for a target -- not quite enough to make 272.50 calls @ 1.00

AAPL remains an excellent proxy for the bull market, so perhaps it's a good time to look at its intraday charts, the better to judge whether December's shaky start portends more trouble. My gut feeling is that the weakness will pass, if it hasn't already, and that both the stock and the broad averages will soon be banging out new record highs. This scenario will become more likely if AAPL blows past the 266.11 midpoint Hidden Pivot shown in the chart to end the week. That would put it on track for a shot at D=269.55 next week, and, presumably, generate corresponding strength in the broad averages. A rendezvous with D could provide us with more information, but I expect sufficient resistance there to set up a potential 'reverse-ABC' short. Stay tuned to the Trading Room for timely guidance. _______ UPDATE (Dec 6, 1:49 p.m. EST): Short-covering at the opening sent AAPL into a lunatic spasm that not only demolished the 266.11 midpoint resistance, but continued higher, eventually reaching and then surpassing the 269.55 target. When it did, I put out a new target at 270.94 ("not rocket science") in the Trading Room that appears to have stopped the rally cold.  AAPL has since fallen $1.04 (!) after peaking at 271.00, six cents above my target.

Here’s why, from a post in the Trading Room: “Richie, it was a great tutorial. They are always invaluable to me as a rookie, as I'm sure to many others. I tend to review the same tutorial at least twice before the next week’s tutorial. Many thanks go to Rick for providing the videos for us to learn. I for one, need to understand the process before taking the trade, which this has provided.” And another: “The first 10 or so minutes were very insightful, and go over his reasons for being long ES.” And another: “I for one will be reviewing today's tutorial tonight. I picked up at least three "a-ha! insights."

Stocks showed surprising strength Wednesday, all of it attributed by the usual dipsticks to supposedly encouraging news about -- you guessed it -- trade talks with China. Don't be fooled, for the rally would have happened anyway. It is just a bull market doing its inexplicable thing, irrespective of whatever Trump happens to be tweeting at a given moment. The tweets may drive stocks silly for a few minutes, or perhaps catalyze an uptrend or downtrend that was about to happen anyway, but they have little effect on the run-ups to new all-time highs that have been recurring with regular frequency lately.

The feisty, 50-point bounce off Tuesday's fear-stricken lows allowed subscribers who followed the simple 'counterintuitive' buying strategy sent out Tuesday evening to book profits of as much as $4200 Wednesday morning on a four-contract position. The futures ended the day above the 3103.00 midpoint Hidden Pivot, implying they are likely to reach the 'reverse ABC' pattern's 3136.25 target at least.  If this Hidden Pivot resistance is easily breached, or if the December contract close above it, that would portend a test of the all-time high recorded last week at 3158.00 and, presumably, a decisive move past it.

I didn't contemplate putting out a bullish trade in this vehicle when I sat down late Tuesday night to update touts for Wednesday, but there it was, hanging like ripe fruit from a low branch: a textbook 'counterintuitive' buy signal at the green line (3093.25), stop 3069.25. The  trade is predicated on a rally to at least p=3117.00, and I am unable to find anything seriously wrong with the pattern itself. Even the position of the point 'C' low in relation to the cliffhanger 'A' is heavy on fear factor -- the key ingredient of the CI set-up.  Entry risk could be reduced a tad by converting this to an rABC trade where A= 3097.75  (11/22 at 10:30 a.m.), but please note that this gambit is already live as of 3:00 p.m.

Ya gotta love the way the stock market turns so docile most nights that it could almost be described as cuddly. Maybe in the way that snakes get cuddly if a warm-blooded mammal lies in a pit with a hundred of them.  Earlier in the day, the Dow Industrials were down about 450 points at their lows. It was a refreshing change for many of us -- the notion that in these all-too-interesting times there is still such a thing as buyer's remorse. Alas, bears turned gutless midway through the session as they so often do, and that was as much respite as we doom-and-gloomers were to enjoy. Even so, there was no particular vigor in the bounce, and so we might expect the selling to resume on Wednesday. The usual talking heads searched for reasons, but the selloff occurred simply because too many traders, your editor among them, were too bullish as December began. Seasonality will be with the optimists this month, to be sure, but a Santa rally is by no means guaranteed. If weak markets combine with even a small, perceived downtick in holiday sales, we'll see these factors feed off each other, generating a downward vortex. So if you'd like to see stocks higher at the end of the  month, I'd suggest doing your patriotic duty by shopping until you drop.