Rick Ackerman

When the S&Ps took a bold leap on December 26 after plummeting 500 points earlier in the month, few could have imagined what would happen next. It were as though, missing an arm and a leg, a soldier had vaulted from a trench in the heat of the Battle of the Somme and shouted "Vive la France!" In the movie, the soldier is dead before he stumbles and hits the ground. But on Wall Street, U.S. stocks were just beginning their most powerful rally ever. The S&P 500 Index has risen 600 points and is closing fast on the record 2941 recorded in September. The wilding spree has been duplicated in stock exchanges around the world even though global growth is slowing. This shows the irresistible power of central bank stimulus, but also the irrationality of the result. Something's got to give, and it seems unlikely that the necessary  adjustment will come via a huge surge in corporate earnings. Even so, easy credit, aggressive share buybacks and force of habit will continue to fuel stocks until the money runs out. Since no one can say any longer what, exactly, counts as money, it is impossible to estimate when this will occur. The charts are also silent on the question of how high. But gut instinct says we are close to an important top, even if ten years from now it turns out not to have been THE Top.

A longstanding rally target at 2929.00 has served  us well, keeping us confidently on the right side of the trend. It now looks extremely likely to be reached, but the question is whether it will be decisively exceeded. I expect the Hidden Pivot to show stopping power, probably tradeably so, but I would recommend going short there only if you have made at least 3-4 points of profit on the way up.  You'll need all of it to provide an ample stop-loss on entry. I say this because the C-D rally leg begun on March 25 provided no opportunities to get long 'mechanically'. This attests to the power of the move, and it raises the odds of a thrust to even higher levels regardless of whether a correction is needed first to get a running start. Even a slight breach of 2929.00 would make a run-up to new record highs all but inevitable. That would not negate my skepticism that the powerful move begun on December 26 has been a bear rally. Too many agree with this judgment, however, to make a move to new highs an easy short.

Investors have thrown caution to the wind as they bid up FAANG stocks to imprudent heights and provide overly generous bids for a few others that face serious jeopardy, including Tesla and Boeing. Even so, the herd evidently had second thoughts about one stock on Friday, pummeling the shares of Netflix when competitor Disney announced a new streaming service that will be bargain priced at $6.99 a month.  Apple was another story, however. After getting hit early in the session, the stock actually closed higher despite the fact that the company will soon be competing with Disney, Netflix and others in the well-saturated entertainment sector. AAPL (click on chart inset) is arguably the most overpriced of the bunch, since the shares had already undergone a ballistic rejuvenation weeks ago after the company announced it would produce and stream movies and TV shows. Investors who have bid up Apple stock 42% since January are betting the company will be able to offset weakening iPhone sales with such fare, but this is unrealistic, to put it mildly. There are already far too many deep-pocketed players in the game, producing many more shows than any of us has the time or interest to watch. And even if Apple were to create TV good enough to steal viewers from Netflix, Disney et al., profit margins would not come close to what they’ve been from selling pricey mobile phones to iCult buyers. Lotus-Eaters Love Uber Uber is another company that lotus-eating investors and the supposedly smart money have got all wrong. Although Wall Street recently lowered its sights by 16%, to $100 billion, for the upcoming IPO, this is still an insane valuation for a business that may never turn a profit. A Wall Street Journal story published last week suggested the dimensions of the

Even if  DaBoyz succeed in pneumatically hoisting this stock with ropes and pulleys above $400, a key psychological level, it looks like BA will need to go lower first to get a running start. Holding the stock aloft in order to distribute shares to widows and pensioners has taken enormous effort that has been aided by a heroic boost from Boeing's ignorant, lazy, ne'er-do-well lackeys in the news media.  Whatever you hear from them, however, this company has big problems.  Here's another link to that VOX.com investigative piece to refresh your memory as to how serious those problems are. From a technical standpoint, I must concede that BA has yet to generate a bearish impulse leg on the daily chart. That's because the 2019 rally was so steep that it left no 'external' lows on the chart that we might have used to qualify a true bearish impulse leg. As a practical matter, though, the 'ersatz' impulse leg we've got yields a pattern with a 356.42 midpoint and a 314.18 'D' target that are good enough for government work. For now, use the higher as a minimum downside target for the next 3-5 days. _______ UPDATE (Apr 16, 5:45 p.m.): This dog and pony show projects to 387.54, or perhaps 389.77 if any higher. However, the stock's clever handlers will need to goose shorts above the 402.67 'external' peak shown here to turn a stage-managed bounce into the real McCoy. That would imply a rally powerful enough to fill the gap between 402 and 415 created when a 737 Max crashed on March 11.

We've been using Hidden Pivot supports at, respectively, 205.72 and 212.77 as minimum rally targets, but I've shifted the perspective for today in order to suggest a bottom-fishing gambit. Specifically, I'll recommend bottom-fishing p=197.14 by using a 197.17 bid, stop 197.07. If you substitute near- or slightly out-of-the-money call options, give yourself a little more leeway on the stop-loss, but make sure you've got one in place. ______ UPDATE (Apr 15, 10:07 p.m.): A bull-trap spike  on the opening bar negated the trade suggested above, but the rally targets at 205.72, and thence 212.77, remain viable. _______ UPDATE (Apr 25, 9:59 p.m.): Sellers cracked a minor midpoint support at 205.34, implying that AAPL will now fall to at least d=203.91 in search of traction. Notice that this is a penny higher than Tuesday's low, which could serve as a point 'A' for a counterintuitive buy. We can track it in the chat room if it triggers, so stay tuned if you're interested. _____ UPDATE (Apr 28, 12:03 a.m.): Sellers trashed the 203.91 'hidden' support flagged above, opening a path over the near term to as low as 200.35. Here's the chart, which shows a secondary pivot at 202.68 where we might look for a bounce. If 200.35 fails as support, use 199.18, which looks well suited for bottom-fishing.

Shares of Apple and Amazon have stalled, implying that institutional sponsors of these two very important stocks may need a rest before they can lead the next charge higher. 'Freaky' Friday would be a good day to take such a crazy leap, except that the broad averages looked too punk on Thursday to deliver one. Moreover, Boeing, which will be driving the Dow's ups and downs for a while,  may have gotten as much mileage as it's going to get from a well-spun news story about how the company will seek the approval of some of its biggest sovereign customers for planned safety changes in the 737 Max. The stock's strong short-covering rally was showing signs of getting second wind after the close, but in any event, the Dow is not going anywhere without Boeing's leadership.

The 2929.00 target shown has served as a minimum upside objective for the last two weeks (notwithstanding some micro-adjustments I made that I am now withdrawing for simplicity's sake). Although there is nothing in the chart that should cause us to think the target won't be reached, the labored hovering at the secondary pivot this week suggests the futures might have to pull back to get a running start at D. The correction could come all the way  down to 2824.18 (the green line) without affecting the bullish look of the daily chart. In fact, that would trip a buy signal that I'd view as opportune. A fall merely to 2859.25 would trigger an "old-style" mechanical buy that we'll consider if and when that number is hit. For now, though, I'd suggest staying out of harm's way as the futures nervously bide their time.

Gold got whacked Thursday as it so often does — i.e., at the apex of a rally that may have encouraged a bullish thought or two in the minds of some investors. Alas, the worst selloff we’ve seen in — well, it’s actually been only two weeks — socked the June contract with an $18 loss. In the accompanying chart, some might discern a head-and-shoulders pattern in the ups and downs of 2019. If you're believer in this formation — and I am not, since they are everywhere one wants to see them — they imply that a downdraft is coming that could bring the futures down to as low as 1220. If it’s any consolation, that would not be much of a victory for bears (aka the Bad Guys), since it would amount to a decline of less than 6%. For the time being, however, I’ll suggest sticking with the 1262.70 target that has obtained for the last two weeks. It is my minimum downside objective and worth bottom-fishing. There's a chance bulls could find the gumption to turn this bag of bolts around near 1279.40, the pattern’s ‘secondary Hidden Pivot support.______ UPDATE (Apr 16, 6:03 p.m. ET): Today's savaging changed nothing in the immediate picture. The 1262.70 target remains valid, and a rally to p=1296.60 would trigger an 'old-style' mechanical short, stop 1308.00. ______UPDATE (Apr 25, 12:03 a.m.): The adorable little tease is headed up to 1284.00, assuming it can traipse past p=1279.60. I'll need to see a print at 1340, though, before I throw in the towel on the bearish 1262.70 target. _______ UPDATE (Apr 25, 10:13 p.m.): A slog up to 1287.90 looks likely. Traders can place a mechanical bid at 1280.70, stop 1278.20, if the futures fall to that number after having peaked today in

Are these guys good, or what! On Wednesday, with Boeing shares getting clobbered, DaBoyz somehow managed to close the Dow six points higher on the day.  That may not sound impressive, but considering that Boeing is by far the most heavily weighted stock in the Industrial Average, the feat was akin to getting a 747 Dreamlifter airborne with two engines out and a half-dozen Abrams battle tanks in its belly.  The effort was rewarded with exactly the kind of headline Wall Street needed to distract the herd from the urgent distribution that has been occurring daily: Dow Tacks on a Modest Gain in Quiet Trading. This innocuous report belies the increasing likelihood that the steep recovery begun on December 26 is about to breathe its last. There are many good reasons for this, including: 1) incipient recessions in China and Europe; 2) a climactic frenzy in IPOs, with Uber leading the pack with a hoped-for $100 billion valuation; 3) falling auto sales...everywhere; 4) a dead-cat bounce in housing; 5) Q1 earnings growth that is expected to fall for the first time in three years; 6) a flat yield curve that is making it extremely difficult for the big banks to shuffle paper profitably; 7) higher energy prices that are starting to impact the transportation sector; and, 8) some key tech stocks that have lost their luster. Time to Fight the Fed? Offsetting all of these negatives, at least in the giddy brains of permabulls, is this: The Fed has no plans to tighten and could conceivably even ease. Place your bets!  But before you do, consider that the Dreamlifter is about to take on the added weight of a growing scandal tied to two 737 Max 8 crashes in the last five months that killed 346 people. The stock lost nearly