Rick Ackerman

The Wall Street 'mafia' charged with distributing AMZN shares to widows and pensioners before the bottom drops out have been experiencing difficulties lately. Twice in the last three sessions, they pulled their bids on the opening in order to dry up sellers; however, in both instances the resulting short-squeeze rallies failed to exceed the previous day's high. Shorts may yet come through and panic to get 'em back over the next day or two, but unless there's some ginned up 'news' to propagate this, expect the stock to take a header down to 1500 or so._______ UPDATE (Jan 15, 5:37 p.m.): Panicky bears finally came to the rescue, driving the stock $62 higher in mere hours. Now, if the 1683.70 midpoint resistance shown in this chart is easily exceeded, look for a continuation of the rally to at least D=1772.24. As always, a stall precisely at p would confirm the pattern and its target._______ UPDATE (Jan 16, 8:16 p.m.): The stock vaulted past the midpoint resistance on the opening bar, raising the odds of a further rally to 1775.75 ( slightly higher than the target given above).  AMZN would trip a 'mechanical' buy signal on a pullback to 1640.30.  Here's a new chart for your further guidance.______ UPDATE (Jan 22, 10:53 p.m.): The 1775.75 rally target remains valid in theory, but today's heavy selloff has left it in doubt. The strong reversal has brought AMZN down to the 1640.30 price where a mechanical buy was signaled, but I explicitly warned subscribers off this trade in the chat room. _______ UPDATE (Jan 23, 5:20 p.m.): An inside day changed nothing in my outlook. However, a print below 1595.15 would stop-out the mechanical buy and turn the lesser charts more bearish.

I haven't looked at 'doc' copper in a while, but a bullish note posted by Seees37 in the Saloon made me curious about the long-term chart. It is indeed bullish and has been so since 2016, mainly because of the robust impulse legs that have been occurring regularly since. Every major upthrust has exceeded a significant prior peak, and that is usually a good indication that the trend will continue. There have been some minor, bearish impulse legs along the way, but none as strong as the bullish ones. If copper prices are in fact headed higher, that would imply the economies of China and Germany are about to get second wind and that recession talk in the U.S. is premature. This is far from a given, however, since it wouldn't take much weakness to diminish the bullish look of the weekly chart shown. A dip beneath 2017's lows near $2.45/pound would suffice. That would also crystallize the bearish head-and-shoulders pattern that has traced out since late 2016. I usually don't pay much attention to these formations because they are everywhere one wants to see them.  In this case, however, the pattern is such a textbook beauty that we ought not ignore it. For an illuminating discussion of head-and-shoulder patterns, visit the Coffee House and Saloon, where some subscribers have weighed in most insightfully Sunday morning on the topic. _______ UPDATE (Jan 28, 4:28 p.m. ET): The recent thrust pushed above three prior peaks (click here for chart), suggesting that any weakness will be corrective, prelude to another bull leg.

It felt like a mountain of supply sitting on stocks last week, growing more ponderous by the day. By Thursday the broad averages were too fatigued to achieve even minor 'Hidden Pivot' rally targets, the still-feisty FAANGs too subdued to help. Of course, just because the market looked punk on a given day does not preclude the possibility that, come the next, traders will conveniently forget what was troubling them. Unfortunately for bulls, however, pulling off this 'weekend alchemy' has grown increasingly difficult because of the darkening economic picture. It's not just little stuff, either -- i.e., the kind of problems that will lift in time to allow Q2 earnings expand. Take Ford Motor Company, for one. The automaker is having such a rough time in Europe that they've begun closing plants, cutting thousands of jobs and eliminating low-profit car models. A second, worrisome story played prominently in Friday's Wall Street Journal reported Apple's slowing sales in web-based services. This matters a great deal because it is a multi-trillion dollar business. AMZN is by far the dominant player, but even the also-rans -- big companies like Microsoft, Google and IBM -- have been counting on robust growth in the cloud to bolster revenues as margins on physical products continue to decline. Apple was hurting to begin with because of disappointing iPhone sales in China. But falling demand for internet services could conceivably be the blow that pushes the Cupertino firm's stock below $100. Such a fate was all but unthinkable when shares of Apple were hitting records above $230 in October, but it is very thinkable now. Deathly Boredom in 2019? If we assume that every uptick in shares is being used by the Masters of the Universe to distribute them, a day of reckoning  is not far off. Until

When the week ended, the E-Minis had struggled unsuccessfully for two days to achieve a modest target inches above their intraday highs. This is distributive price action, although we should allow for the possibility that whatever was weighing on traders' febrile brains on Friday will conveniently have been forgotten when the new week begins. The hourly chart remains bullish in any case and points most immediately to 2609.75 as the next point of resistance. This target is sufficiently clear and compelling that I will suggest shorting there with a stop-loss as tight as 1.00 point -- but ONLY if you have been long for at least a portion of the ride up. If the stop is hit, raise your sights to a minimum 2632.75, yet another Hidden Pivot resistance that promises to show precise stopping power._______ UPDATE (Jan 14, 9:25 a.m.): The rally has reversed overnight, although its 2632.75 target will remain valid in theory until such time as C=2560.50 is exceeded to the downside. Here's the chart. _______ UPDATE (Jan 15, 12:42 p.m.): And here's yet another chart, since I am raising my minimum upside projection for the near term to 2638.75. Expect it to show precise stopping power.

I put out a commentary Sunday night bearing this tongue-in-cheek headline: "No Chance This Rally Is the Real Deal, Right?"  Of course, merely to pose the question is to suggest that it is at least possible the bull market still breathes.  Look, I'm as skeptical as you are, a died-in-the-wool permabear who thinks the Dow will ultimately trade below 10,000. And I see the same ugly, seemingly unstoppable developments that you see:  The housing and auto sectors are imploding, U.S. retailers' holiday season is starting to look like a last hurrah (and a weak one at that); and the economies of Germany and China are entering a possible death spiral. It doesn't help that companies that threw countless billions at share buybacks since stocks began falling in October lost their shirts. Toss in the growing political and economic uncertainties of a nation slipping into a so-far-bloodless civil war, and you might think that anyone buying stocks right now (other than short-covering bears) is crazy, stupid or both. And yet, when we assert that new record highs are not possible, we must be prepared to eat crow if we are wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. Nor would it require much buying power to accomplish this, even if some believe otherwise.  Here's a skeptic in the Rick's Picks trading room Thursday:  "Short of a new [round of quantitative easing], there simply isn't enough money out there to lift the markets to new highs. Remember, markets fall under their own weight but need to be bought to go up. As Jim Dines used to say, 'When stocks fall (without trading), money goes to money heaven'. The collective capital loss so far is several trillion, with FAANG stocks losing a cool trillion on their own." Don't Bet Against It In fact, it

During our hour together we turned the rules upside down to come away with a profitable trade in the E-Mini S&Ps. As most of you will already know, the best way to trade the nasty little sonofabitch is to use patterns in which the A-B impulse leg is a “bad” one. In practice this means it has failed to exceed a prior ‘external’ peak as we normally require. That would only get the algos salivating, and we never want to bump heads with math majors. It took a second try to get aboard using the one-minute chart, but watch the trade in real time and you’ll see how flouting the rules produced a quick winner on a slow day.

Could AMZN goad the broad averages toward new record highs without any help from AAPL? We may find out soon whether such manipulative 'triage' is possible if the stock pushes past the trendline shown in the chart. It comes in around 1730 and could be hit by week's end if buyers maintain the steep trajectory that has obtained since Dec 24. The stock has risen nearly 30% since then and seems capable of wilding sprees even when the shares of Apple, long our number one bellwether, look like hell. There are two important peaks below the trendline, and a rally exceeding them would be setting up a more likely assault on it.  You can be certain in any case that the Masters of the Universe are planning to short-squeeze AMZN for all it's worth. As we've seen in the past, it doesn't take much leadership to keep the broad averages buoyant -- only a FAANG stock with a mind to ignore or forget bad news. Such forgetfulness could conceivably help rejuvenate the shares of Apple and Facebook, which have gotten nothing but bad press over the last several months. Whatever happens, we should put aside doubts that stocks are capable of shrugging off an incipient recession and doing something really nutty. At the same time, we should remember that any bear rally worthy of the name is going to do whatever it takes to convince us it's capable of achieving new all-time highs.

Restrained by AAPL's leaden performance, the Dow eked out an unusually small gain Monday, rising by an unnewsworthy 98 points. Buyers aren't necessarily spent, just timid about going for the gusto without leadership from the world's most institutionally owned stock. They are certain to try again on Tuesday, especially with AAPL's canny sponsors doing their part to rev up short-covering ahead of the opening. Just before midnight, the stock was oscillating slightly beneath the intraday high, still underwater and within an extremely tight range. If it merely holds steady in the early going, bears who kept their cool on Monday are almost certain to panic. The feedback loop with AAPL should be sufficient to propel the Dow higher by at least 300 points. We shall see.

So why didn't Friday's short-covering panic produce another thousand-point blowout for the Dow? Buyers just didn't seem to have it in them. Instead, Wall Street had to settle for a less-than-dazzling 747-pointer that could have impressed only Jim Cramer and a few other market cheerleaders who get paid to tout bear rallies like they were the real thing. How do we 'know' it's a bear rally? Because, is why! Who in their right mind could believe that even the most urgent short-covering could redeem this hoax with a move to new-record highs? Of course, for a smug permabear to even pose that question in a headline is to invite trouble. Yes, housing and autos are in the dumper, corporate earnings have peaked, AAPL is no longer capable of an up-yours wilding spree and the Fed has tightened one time too many. But there are a couple of 'what ifs' that could conceivably put bulls back in the game. Suppose, for example, that China, whose economy is starting to spiral downward, were to give Trump the trade deal he wants? And then suppose the Fed, remorseful over its last, incredibly stupid rate hike, were to announce QE5? Then what? Game-Changing Headlines Well, for starters the Dow could surely squeeze a quick 1500 points from those two headlines, especially if they came back-to-back. That would leave the blue chip average an inch shy of 25,000, sitting just above a 24828 'external' peak recorded December 12. Now take a good look at the chart (inset). Would you want to get in the way of bulls at those heights, just as they were starting to feel their oats?  That's what I thought. Admittedly, the two prayed-for headlines are unlikely to materialize just because the stock market needs them. But it's not out of the