Rick Ackerman

We have a sequence of rally targets at 205.51, 209.18 and 216.08 to keep us in stride with the bullish herd, but there's an alternative picture that deserves caution. Notice that AAPL has rallied back to the green line after falling beneath the midpoint Hidden Pivot support at 174.20, producing a valid signal to get short 'mechanically' at 194.75 (stop 215.31). The signal is weak, however, because the dip to around 170 did not quite get down to our sweet spot near 164, and that's why I am not recommending the trade. Regardless, the signal itself is reason not to get too comfortable with the idea that a push toward 2018's record high at 233 is inevitable. _______ UPDATE (Jul 8, 3:44 p.m. ET): Friday's 205.08 high came within a millimeter of the first of our three targets, 205.51, so consider it fulfilled. AAPL underscored the accuracy and importance of the target by plummeting $7 since. _______ UPDATE (Jul 22, 6:30 p.m.): A short-squeeze popped the stock above a tedious accumulation range, and it should now be presumed bound for at least 209.18, the second target in the sequence identified here more than three weeks ago. Keep in mind the each can be used to initiate a tightly stopped short. _______ UPDATE (Jul 30, 10:38 p.m.): DaBoyz have outdone themselves tonight, goosing the stock senseless with a short squeeze that has easily surpassed an otherwise impenetrable peak at 215.31 made on May 1. Give them lots of credit, since this is a task that mere bulls could never have accomplished, and it has cleared the path to eventual new-record highs.

Buyers decisively exceeded a 25.58 target that has been seven months in coming, implying GDX will move significantly higher once it has had time to catch its breath. I  expect the correction to take 2-3 weeks, but any less would imply bulls are revved up and ready to shoot for a much more ambitious number, a 36.67 Hidden Pivot that looks compelling on the monthly chart (inset). Use its corresponding midpoint resistance at 26.98 as a minimum rally target for the near term (i.e., 4-7 days), and consider initiating a tightly stopped short if and when GDX hits 26.98. _______ UPDATE (Jul 10, 9:33 p.m.): GDX seems to have corrected June's big blast more quickly than I had expected. The 26.98 pivot is still my minimum upside target for the moment, and it could stop the rally temporarily, but I am no longer recommending that you try to intercept by shorting there. _______ UPDATE (Jul 17, 9:35 p.m.): Buyers bulldozed p=26.54 of a clear ABC pattern, all but guaranteeing the rally will continue to at least D=28.54 over the very near term. Here's the chart. _______ UPDATE (Jul 30, 10:47 p.m.):  GDX has stalled since topping a week ago at 28.31, seven cents below my target. We'll wait for the latest Fed "news" to happen before we make ready to buy calls. _______ UPDATE (Jul 31, 10:14 p.m.): If it continues just a little farther, this plunge would trigger a mechanical buy at 26.02, stop 24.52. As noted in the chat room, I'm bidding for out-of-the-money calls expiring Sep 6, predicated on the green line being reached.

It's days like Thursday that make the bull market feel invincible. Although even a super-sensitive lab instrument could not have detected a mote of buying enthusiasm, stocks nevertheless were able to tread water all day and close essentially unchanged. They seem capable of vamping indefinitely while waiting for some 'news' to trigger a short-covering panic. Factor out vaguely dovish cryptoblather from the Fed and minutely bullish emanations concerning the tariff war, and the Dow would be trading 5000 points lower. What most amazes is that when stocks drop because trade tensions are perceived as rising, they regain all of the lost ground and then some when tensions return to normal. This dynamic demonstrates the power of short-covering, a source of buying so urgent and desperate that it invariably outdoes whatever selling has preceded it.  The reverse will be true in a bear market -- i.e., the selling will tend to get overdone, while rallies, however violent, will be limited in scope. And just as violent swoons in a bull market serve to keep bulls from making money too easily, fleeting bear rallies will keep shorts from getting comfortable betting on what would otherwise seem like a sure thing.

They don't ring a bell at the top, as the old saying goes. Still, if you're looking for scary signs of excess in the stock market, you couldn't find better evidence of it than bitcoin's psychotic rally. I've projected a move to at least 21,032 (see tout below), a 66% gain from current levels, but I hesitate to assert that that would be the end of it. It is matched by rampant speculation in the housing sector, where corporations have been snapping up 25% of all homes on the market to rent them or flip them for quick profits. Unlike the wilding spree in bitcoin, which is just a silly, stupid game, the inevitable collapse of the housing bubble holds grave implications for the U.S. economy.

The lunatics are back, pushing bitcoin with the same psychotic zeal they showed blowing the 2017 bubble. I am updating with a new target at 21,032 that is based on a slightly revised rally pattern (inset). Judging from the way buyers impaled the pattern's 12083 midpoint resistance today, it seems extremely unlikely this surge will fall short of the target. I try to avoid the use of the word 'extremely', but in this case my confidence that 21,032 will be achieved is close to absolute. When I originally projected a move to 19,850, BRTI, a CME index that tracks bid/asked spreads in real time across many bitcoin markets, was trading for around 8,000. That was a little more than a week ago, and I could not have imagined at the time that we'd be halfway there so soon. I doubt that BRTI will cover the remaining distance as quickly, but if it does, it will describe a mania with a lifespan more meaningfully measured with a stopwatch than a calendar. If the Hidden Pivot resistance at 21,032 fails to stop the stampede -- and I do NOT expect this resistance to give way easily, if at all --  I'll be out of good targets to share with you._______ UPDATE (Jun 27, 5:23 p.m.): Finally, a correction painful enough to rebuke bulls, especially if it lasts for a few more days. They'll be back, for sure, but many are undoubtedly hanging on, or buying the dip, in expectation of the next explosive rally. They have little to fear if my 21,032 target is to be reached, a prospect that I regard as 90% likely. In the meantime, if the pullback continues to 7609 (shown as a green line in this chart), that would trigger a very enticing 'mechanical' buy, stop 3133,

August Gold's attempt to reverse from a morning sell-off prompted a subscriber to ask in the Rick's Picks trading room whether bullion is already getting second wind.  I doubt it, since June's sensational run-up was too steep to sustain and will likely require a breather of perhaps 2-3 weeks to recharge. But I do expect the uptrend to resume after a proper pullback because this month's surge decisively exceeded clear Hidden Pivot resistances at 1412 and 1432. This is usually a reliable sign that the dominant trend will continue, and it is quite clear in this instance.  Because the pattern took ten months to play out, it would be surprising -- and quite bullish -- if the futures do a '180' and blow past the 1432.70 peak within the next few days. Anything's possible, so we'll simply wait for gold to do its thing and to tell us what's on its mind. _______ UPDATE (Jul 1, 7:16 p.m. ET): Expect more weakness, since the futures failed to get airborne after tripping a 'counterintuitive' buy signal. Most immediately they could fall to around 1340.00 before picking up structural support from some prior lows recorded in mid-June. But if you want a precise Hidden Pivot target where a tradeable low is possible, use 1356.30 (60-minute, a=1427.80 on 6/27; b=1384.70). 

(Test) A homebuilder friend of mine who is also a stock-market junkie and savvy trader emailed me a dismal-looking chart of Lennar Tuesday with this bearish note: "The homies have spoken. Get short [the stock market] or miss the down move." This guy can boast of months when he made more money presciently trading the shares of Lennar, Beazer, D.R. Horton, Pulte et al. than he did from his high-powered construction job. He even managed to tune out habitually upbeat talk in the board room and executive washroom for long enough to clean up on last year's collapse in lumber prices.  And that is why I do not take his trading tips lightly. However, in this case the evidence he presents is so seductive that I am inclined do the opposite -- i.e., embrace the seemingly absurd possibility of an imminent upsurge in residential construction. The very idea flouts my gut feeling that America will be in recession before the year ends. Matching Epaulets And yet, study Lennar's chart (inset) and you can easily imagine a reverse head-and-shoulders pattern taking shape with the power to launch Lennar, and presumably other 'homies', significantly higher within the next four to six weeks.  I have never put much store in H&S patterns because they are virtually everywhere a trader wants to see them. But this one, with drooping epaulets that look like perfectly matched earrings, is so alluring as to confound the skeptic. We'll probably know by mid-July whether the chart was warning of trouble or throbbing with opportunity. In the meantime, if we get another month of declining home sales, don't scoff at the possibility of a trampoline bounce-from-nowhere in this statistic. _______ UPDATE (Jul 1, 7:27 p.m.): If bulls are going to turn the stock around, their best opportunity will come

With the stock market barely registering a pulse these days and the headlines about as dog-bites-man as news gets (i.e.,  Jussie Smollett Case to Be Reviewed), I am once again offering to discerning Rick's Picks readers the opportunity to acquire the painting pictured at left. When I accepted it in settlement of a debt some years ago, prominent Atlanta art dealer Bill Lowe advised me that it would fetch between $55,000 and $70,000. Lowe, who exclusively represented the artist, Kathleen Morris, for more than two decades, said her earlier paintings had "balls" and that the large size of this one -- 76" x 80" -- would make it particularly appealing to collectors. Those listed at the time on Lowe's web site as owning works by Kathleen Morris included some names you will recognize -- Halle Berry, Danny DeVito, Cushman Realty, John Glover and David Justice among them. 'Feminine Polarity' The painting is called Arena, and it is oil on linen. In an email to me, Lowe summed up its personal appeal as follows: "Like Kathleen’s work, I am irresistibly drawn to the spiritual realms but have an acute understanding that the physical plane is a manifestation of that – and the feminine polarity of it.  I am committed to its perpetuation and to our interaction with it."  Judge for yourself whether this striking work of art would inspire similar thoughts if it sat on a wall in your home or place of business. I am open to all offers, including cash, Tiffany glass, antique lab instruments, 60s-vintage British motorcycles, works of art, Persian rugs, 1990s Toyota Supras in decent running order, antique billiard tables, Bösendorfer or Steinway pianos, rare autographs and books, etcetera. If you are interested or know someone who might be, contact me at rick@rickackerman.com

Although the rally is growing more convincing by the day, the chart shows some key benchmarks that will need to be exceeded to buttress the case for a sustained move higher. Specifically, there is a Hidden Pivot resistance at 1455.20 that we should expect to show some stopping power. There are also 'external' peaks from 2013 at, respectively, 1432.40 and 1487.90 that must be surpassed in order to refresh the bullish impulsiveness of the weekly chart. (The lower was missed by less than a dollar today.) Because the chart is a composite of many expired contracts, the Hidden Pivot levels and peaks are not exact.  But they should be close enough to actual -- i.e., within $3-$5 -- to be useful for gauging the strength of the rally and identifying its obstacles. ______ UPDATE (Jun 25, 8:12 p.m.): One obstacle overcome (1432.20), two more to go. But by exceeding the first, buyers generated a fresh impulse leg on the daily chart that will make any retracement holding above 1273.20 corrective and therefore potentially buy-able.