Rick Ackerman

With Elizabeth Warren aggressively on-the-stump, the truly rich had better hold onto their wallets. Now she's pitching student-debt cancellation that would be paid-for with a 2% levy on wealth above $50 million and an additional 1% tax on wealth above $1 billion. Is this the greatest idea since sliced bread, or what? Socialists, even brainy ones like Warren, can't help sounding like morons whenever they talk. But she's certainly on a winning political track when she emphasizes that the $1.5 trillion the plan would require over the next ten years won't cost us working stiffs a dime. Who could resist such an idea, other than a few churlish billionaires already pressed to pay for the Green New Deal, and a handful of old-fashioned economists who have actually read Adam Smith. The great Scottish economist would surely agree with Wall Street Journal columnist Andy Kessler, who noted in a Monday op-ed piece that "socialists like Bernie Sanders love to spend money on 'free' education and Medicare for All but have no policies to make money in the first place." That is precisely why Warren's latest soak-the-rich scheme flunks freshman economics: It fails, even, to acknowledge incentives, let alone understand how they produce wealth. It also neglects to consider the bad signal it will send to those who have collectively borrowed more than $1.5 trillion to pay for college, as well as students who might conceivably borrow in the future.

Boeing has conspicuously failed to hit an 'easy' rally target at 387.54, suggesting that all the deft spin control in the world may not be enough to coax the stock high enough to suck in the rubes. The rally target will remain viable nonetheless until such time as 373.68 is exceeded to the  downside. This seems likely, as does a test of structural support near 362 where sellers have been repelled twice since the fatal March 11 crash of a 737 Max._______ UPDATE (Apr 23, 10:25 p.m.): A failed salvage operation threatens to send the stock down to 349.59, a Hidden Pivot support that will be in play if sellers breach the 367.12 midpoint pivot shown here. _______ UPDATE (Apr 25, 9:05): The public relations con-game that's keeping Boeing afloat has grown too tiresome to watch, so I'm 'de-listing' the stock for now.  I've set screen alerts above $400 and below $360 to wake me if something interesting happens._______ UPDATE (May 13, 11:53 a.m.): BA has finally broken down and appears bound for the 329.55 target shown in this chart. ______ UPDATE (May 16, 4:20 p.m.): Despite the deftly engineered whoopee cushion bounce over the last two sessions, the 329.55 downside target will remain viable unless 361.52 is exceeded to the upside. Were that to occur, DaBoyz would gain even stronger control of the stock.

We haven't looked at Google for quite a while, but suffice it to say the stock has been moving in harmony with a half-dozen other biggies that are determining the look and longevity of the bull market.  The chart suggests GOOG is bound for at least 1334.30, with possible resistance near the all-time high at 1273.89, and at 1243.25, a 'secondary' Hidden Pivot. Just two more resistance points I'll mention because they deserve to be on-the-record: 1298.64 and 1305.16.  They come from this pattern, with the point 'A' low shifted downward to produce the higher 'D'.

The Dow Industrials look primed for a 900-point rally, assuming they can close for two consecutive days above Friday's high. It occurred slightly beneath a 26,656 Hidden Pivot resistance that's a good bet to show stopping power. However, anything above it would bring a new pivot resistance at 27,463 into focus. That's exactly 904 points above, and it would become all but certain to be achieved if the lower number is breached decisively. Longer-term, the chart shows that the Indoos could ascend to as high as 33,213 -- 6654 points, or 25%, higher -- if the bullish rampage begun in January continues into 2020. I am confident that the Hidden Pivot levels on the chart can tell us exactly how much power is pushing the aging bull market. Although the chart shows a long-term trend, it can be read exactly as we might an hourly chart. The same rules apply, and any conclusions we might draw thereof can be assumed as reliable as those we derive from the lesser charts. Indeed, the interchangeability of time frames is a crucial aspect of the Hidden Pivot Method. In this case the chart speaks so clearly that there is little room to doubt their conclusiveness. _______ UPDATE (Apr 25, 9:17 p.m. ET): The 26,656 pivot noted above has given way, although not by much. Now, if the next run-up can close for two consecutive days above the so-far high at 26,696, I'd infer the Indoos are on their way up to at least D=26,974, or 27,125 if any higher. FYI, a 'mechanical' buy missed triggering today by a hair, but I'll track it anyway -- from x=26,329. Here's the chart.

A friend’s 104-year-old mother became difficult last week in the throes of being hospitalized four days for a urinary tract infection. It might have been said before this episode that Fagel G. did not have a mean bone in her body. It turns out she does, however, and that when it is given free vent – as what other response is possible? -- the result is behavior that even her loving daughter has characterized as abusive and combative.  Thus did everyone's favorite Aunty Fagel become, at least for a short while, anti-Fagel. And yet, those with aging parents cannot but marvel at the resurgence of the life force, even if its chosen mode of expression is recalcitrance – nay, pugnaciousness. And yes, we must accept that she acted by choice, lest we become patronizing toward a sometimes churlish, 104-year-old woman once her fury has been spent. But suppose her orneriness does not blow over in a few days? We should be ready to accept that, too, as long as she doesn’t hurt anyone or herself. All of our mothers should live to be 104 and have the spunk to misbehave at so miraculous an age.

Our weekly hunt for real-time trades bagged no elk or bear, just a couple of squirrels. The goal was to affirm the idea that no Pivoteer ever went broke trading against the trend at well-defined D targets. We attempted this in NFLX and TSLA, only to discover that even if the law of averages favors us, there will always be outliers that lose money. Still, there’s some good material here relating to camouflage set-ups, a tactic we haven’t used much in the last several lessons. These trades are work-intensive, but on days like this one, we were able to combine them with ‘mechanical’ triggers to yield action on a dull day.

Today's chart shows why it can be so difficult to make money in a bull market, even when one "knows" how high a stock is headed.  We've been confident that Facebook (click on inset) will eventually hit 190, a Hidden Pivot target first aired here more than three weeks ago when the stock was trading around 167.  We still think it'll get there, come hell or high water. But what an agony it has been to simply go with the flow! As the chart shows, the stock has made a series of marginal new highs, each followed by a relatively stiff pullback. If you'd been long the stock at April 3's 177.96 peak, you'd have needed to weather a $5 swing against you just to net a four-cent gain at the next peak.  The 179.19 peak that  followed that one, making you $119 richer on 100 shares, required sitting tight on a dive that at its low would have made you $373 poorer. Rewarding the Faithful Although Rick's Picks tries to keep risk/reward in a 1:3 ratio at all times, a buy-and hold strategy in Facebook, as you can see, subjects one to an effective risk:reward greater than 3:1. Risking $3 to make $1 is no way for a trader to make a living. Tesla shares, incidentally, come out far worse on the risk:reward scale. If you'd held a single share from the September 2017 record high at 389, you're out $118 at the moment and would need a 43% rally just to break even. Ultimately, it is only the enduringly faithful -- in this case, institutional geniuses who have held just a handful of one-decision FAANG stocks for years -- who can withstand such horrendous short-term odds.

A 2929.00 rally target disseminated here a while back remains in force despite Wednesday's plunge into an air pocket. The futures had climbed steadily overnight, only to give it all back and then some in less than an hour when health insurance stocks came under heavy selling pressure. The biggest of them, UnitedHealth Group, the second most heavily weighted stock in the Dow, plummeted 7% in a blink as Crazy Bernie talked up Medicare-for-All. Although he is certain to persist as an irritant, it's unlikely to affect the broad averages for more than a few days, if that long. Meanwhile, even though the 2929.00 target still looks like a lock-up, that doesn't make it any easier to profit by trading with the uptrend. The chart shows how a lesser target at 2924.50 was missed by an inch, denying Rick's Picks subscribers a chance to get short with risk tightly under control. Assuming the futures reverse and continue higher, it won't be much easier to get long for the ride.  Buy-and-hold positions are simply not possible when marginally higher daily peaks are separated by 20-point dives.

The stock market's masters have zeroed in on a few stocks to help foster the illusion that the aging bull is in excellent health. If you've been watching the shares of Boeing, AAPL and Tesla in particular you could get the impression buyers are unstoppable.  With cyclical forces powerfully supporting the uptrend at the moment, the Masters of the Universe are training much of their firepower on hard cases that have gotten bad publicity in recent months. Any gains in these stocks is effectively being banked against their next downturn, when investors will shed their amnesia and suddenly remember all of the bad news. If there is evidence the buying spree is near an end, however, it can be found most easily in the chart of VXXB, an S&P volatility index that is close to an important downside target at 24.50. If there's a sharp bounce from that number as we should expect, then an important top in the stock market is close.