Rick Ackerman

In observance of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement and holiest day of the year, there will be no further updates for Wednesday. Normal service for Rick's Picks subscribers and followers will resume on Thursday morning.  Let me wish you an easy fast if you plan to do so. May the year bring family and friends good health, prosperity and joyous tidings.  Happy new year to you all!

We've been using a 243.68 target in this stock to stay unemotionally on the right side of a mature bull market that only bears caught in the ringer are buying aggressively any more. AAPL is the key bellwether to watch, and that's why getting it right is so important. My confidence that the target will be reached is based on the way the stock plowed through the midpoint pivot at 218.13 the first time it hit it. Even so, the pink line in the chart shows a secondary pivot at 230.91 that should be monitored diligently, since it is a logical place for a stall or worse.  Today's high missed it by $1 -- close enough to infer that bulls may have had it for the time being. If AAPL feints to 230.91 over the next day or two, you can buy close-dated puts. Risk no more than you would on a bunch of scratch-off tickets, since the odds are not heavily in our favor. ______ UPDATE (Oct 23, 10:45 p.m.): I'm somewhat relieved that AAPL has exceeded 243.68 at a time of day when we cannot hurt ourselves with put options that would be under attack if this were happening during regular hours. Let's take the stock's measure after the opening, since there may be a less risky opportunity then. I would still be very surprised if AAPL does not peak within $2 of the target. So far tonight it has traded as high as 244.25.

Rick's Picks subscribers were probably among the few traders who made money Monday on the long side of gold. In the process of falling by more nearly $20 from Sunday night's high, the December contract rallied $8.70 early in the session, allowing us to catch half of the move on an rABC pattern for a quick, lovely gain. In the trading room, actual profits reported in slightly less than an hour ranged from $410 to $520.  You should check the chat room scroll to see whether the discussion might have activated, and then enabled, your interest. The trade had been mentioned Sunday night as a possibility pending the creation of a point 'C' low for the relevant pattern. It came at around 9:12 a.m., and although I mentioned in my post at that time that I wasn't too enthused about the buy side, the opportunity looked too good to pass up. And now, looking just ahead, the futures appeared bound still lower --- to at least D= 1487.20 if p=1493.50 is decisively penetrated. If you trade this vehicle, stay close to the chat room for real-time guidance.

Subscribers reported getting short a single tick off the high today, reaping what turned out to be a relatively quick and easy bonanza. The E-Minis sold off hard a half-hour after peaking, allowing those who used December futures to leverage the move to rack up gains of as much as $1,250 per contract. Most reported profits ranging between $400 and $750 -- not bad for the 35 minutes of work it took to cash out at that level. Some traders reported using put options, including SPY Oct 11 295s bought for 0.73 that subsequently traded as high as 1.32. Puts offered a cheap way to play, but if you factored in slippage they would have been rather more labor-intensive to manage than futures contracts. So what's next? I view any rally these days as a short-sale opportunity, and I will continue to look for them. The best place to keep apprised in real time is in the Trading Room. I am not quite ready to go all-in on a short, however, because I still expect AAPL, which closed at 227.40, to hit 243.68 before it runs out of steam. _______ UPDATE (Oct 8, 5:31 p.m.): The sharp selloff stopped precisely at the 2890.00 midpoint support of this pattern. Its decisive breach would portend more downside to the 2820.50 target.  Traders should be alert for a reversal from our 'sweet spot' back up to the green line, since that could set up an opportune 'mechanical' short. _______ UPDATE (Oct 10, 10:45 p.m.) Sellers failed for a second straight day to take out the 2890.00 midpoint support. The reaction looks torqued to blow past the 2959.50 point 'C' of the bearish pattern, opening a path to 3000, where a series of tops were recorded in the last week of September.

[Note: The Morning Line is published every Monday and Wednesday unless a significant event occurs in-between. Facebook and YouTube commentary, forecasts and trading ideas are aired on Monday's and Wednesdays. RA] The Dow Industrials ended the week with an 800-point Whoopee Cushion bounce that recouped two-thirds of a 1300-point loss suffered days earlier. The swoon, exhilarating as it may have seemed to traders, will do little to brighten an economic picture that has gone from boom to gloom since mid-summer. One might think the dark cloud of recession billowing over China and Europe these days would have caused investors to lower their expectations for the U.S. economy. However, evidence that they care even slightly about a global slowdown was nowhere to be discerned on Friday. Shares were up across-the-board, with the S&Ps tacking on a 40-point gain and the FAANG stocks in the rapacious grip of trade-desk madmen. Short-covering provided nearly all of the turbo-boost as it always does, warning bears still on the sidelines to stay put for the time being. We'd fully expected the bounce to come from lower levels -- specifically, from a 25,363 'Hidden Pivot' target in the Dow that had looked certain to be achieved. Alas, the forecast missed by a not-so-trivial 380 points when the Indoos trampolined off 25,743.  The jury is still out on this one, however, since 25,363 will remain a valid price objective in theory unless the rally exceeds 27,303. But it is usually a bullish sign when downtrending ABCD correction patterns fall short of their 'D' targets, as seems to have occurred here. Moreover, there is no reason to think that a deepening global downturn, impeachment mayhem and signs of a top in the U.S. economy will impair buyers' bad judgment. For at the end of the day, the rally

We'll keep this chart in mind to avoid getting spooked whenever the usual, benighted yeasayers gang up on Treasurys. I am not wavering on my still-bullish outlook for T-bonds and -notes, notwithstanding the fact that some notable bond bulls, including Gary Shilling, have publicly glimpsed the end of T-Bonds' three-decade winning streak. A generational reversal is coming, for sure, but let's not look the gift horse in the mouth while yields are continuing to fall. A rally to the 154.93 target shown in the chart would equate to a rate of about 1.65% on the long bond. _______ UPDATE (Oct 12): We've waited for a chance to get long, and this is the best opportunity that has surfaced in a while -- at the midpoint Hidden Pivot support of a substantial corrective pattern. Tradestation is kaput at the moment, but I'll update with a trade suggestion on Monday if the option screen revives. My plan is to calendar-spread a well-out-of-the-money strike. _______ UPDATE (Oct 16, 5:21 p.m.): TLT looks fatigued, so let's allow it to fall before we attempt to get aboard. _______ UPDATE (Oct 21, 7:49 p.m.): We side-stepped TLT's nasty sell-off by remaining on the sidelines, but the secondary support at 136.93 will be a good place to attempt bottom-fishing with a tight stop-loss. A 136.96 bid can be used, stop 136.79, on 400 shares. _______ UPDATE (Oct 22, 10:38 p.m.): A pop above 140.38 would generate an impulse leg on the hourly chart. We'll consider buying on strength -- something we rarely do -- if and when the time comes. _______ UPDATE (Oct 23, 10:54 p.m.): The stock popped to 140.31 -- close but no cigar! -- before receding sharply.  Even so, the head-fake generated a bullish impulse leg on the hourly chart. Let's see if buyers

Gold survived a hostile 'news' day on Friday, bruised but unbowed. The nutty swings left the December contract in good shape to achieve the 1542.10 midpoint pivot shown in the chart. As always, an easy and decisive move through this resistance would make the 1619.10 'D' target a odds-on bet to be achieved. Since there is as much as $11,000 of potential profit in the trade per contract, we should be alert to entry opportunities that occur on the lesser charts intraday. An rABC setup on a 5-minute chart, for instance, can cut initial risk by as much as 95%, provided we are quick.

This vehicle has tripped a 'counterintuitive' buy signal off the 'reverse ABC ' (rABC) pattern shown. Typically, we look to exit these trades at p (in this case 27.77), but since we are not officially on board, we'll use the pattern for forecasting, at least for now.  If price action should generate a textbook mechanical set-up to get long we'll take it, although we don't have much experience using that type of entry in conjunction with reverse ABCs.  If GDX is going to the 29.02 target, it should handle the p resistance with ease. _______ UPDATE (Oct 3, 8:54 p.m.): Today's feint above the red line set-up a 'mechanical' buy if the retracement hits x=27.16 (stop 26.50). This is a so-so opportunity (6.0 out of 10.0) because the point 'B' high is so 'sausage-y'. That means if you act on it, don't bet the farm. _______ UPDATE (Oct 4, 9:16 a.m.): All bets are off, since ambiguous, completely meaningless payroll 'news' has caused stocks and futures to go haywire ahead of the opening. ______ UPDATE (Oct 5): Yes, the trade would have worked perfectly, since GDX made a V-shaped bottom at 27.14, two cents below where I'd suggested bidding. Even with hindsight, however, it still would have been a difficult trade, since gold futures swung $18 in moments when the alleged jobs 'news' hit the tape. These trades are do-able, but not ideally via updates sent out the night before. I hesitate to put out updates every time stocks feint one way or the other, so you'll need to stay close to the Trading Room if you want to be apprised in real time. If I'm not in the room when things happen, don't hesitate to ask others, since there is invariably someone around who knows his Hidden Pivots as

Given the ease with which the futures sliced through the 2898.13 midpoint pivot shown, there is more selling to come. At a minimum, the presumptive correction should continue to at least p2=2834.31. The justification for bottom-fishing there is that another strong bull leg awaits. If so, p2 is a logical place for a reversal. If the December contract were to instead head down to D=2770.50 -- or, heaven forbid, exceed it -- that would raise the odds that the next rally will produce a very tradeable top at either p or D. ______ UPDATE (Oct 3, 8:39 p.m.): If this short-covering spree hits x=2961.64, that would trigger a mechanical short, stop 3026.00.  The approximately $3200 of entry risk per contract is too steep, so we'll look for another way in if the opportunity should arise.______ UPDATE (Weekend): This chart shows another reason to consider shorting just above with a stop-loss as tight as five ticks.  It's a cheap way to play the 'mechanical' set-up noted above, but I am recommending it only to those who have made at least a few bucks on the way up.