Rick Ackerman

The Gold Miners ETF is staggering its way toward the 22.57 target shown, but if we get lucky we could get aboard belatedly with a pullback to 22.57, the green line. That would trip a mechanical buy signal, but the 2.57 target will remain viable in any event, so long as GDX does not drop below the pattern's 19.90 point 'C' low. As always, an easy move past D=22.57 would portend still higher prices (which is what we should expect here). Be prepared for the by-now-obligatory pullback from p2 (21.90), but the impediment should be short-lived. Looking at a bigger picture, a 23.31 print would turn the daily chart robustly impulsive, and a move touching 24.87 would send the bear into hibernation.

Friday's $78 explosion topped at 1594.00, two-tenths of a percent from the 1590.38 rally target I'd posted in the Saloon before the opening. The rally looks like it has enough steam to push decisively past the midpoint resistance Sunday night and to continue to either of two targets shown. The first lies at approximately 1645, where the trendline I've drawn will come in; the second is a Hidden Pivot resistance at exactly 1660.16. If the stock should push past that last number, exceeding an 'external' peak at 1704.99 recorded on December 12, take it as a sign that this rally is destined to be more than your garden-variety short squeeze._______ UPDATE (Jan 8, 9:23 p.m. ET): Buyers demolished both of the resistance points identified above, clearing the way for a potentially nasty short squeeze in the days or perhaps weeks ahead. For starters, look for a test of some important 'external' peaks at, respectively, 1704.99 and 1718.93 that were recorded in December. If both are penetrated without much effort, AMZN would signal its readiness to take on December 3's 1778.34 high and thereupon to become a 40% shot to achieve new all-time highs. Here's a chart that shows it all.

Friday's short-covering binge blew past the 2501.50 midpoint resistance (see inset) with such force that there should be little doubt about a finishing stroke touching D=2564.50. I am recommending a tightly stopped short there only to traders who have made a few bucks being long for the ride up. It's impossible to predict where the futures will open Sunday evening, but it may be possible to get long via a camouflage set-up on the 5-minute chart or lower. In any event, your trading bias should be bullish as the new week begins. _______ UPDATE (Jan 7, 6:57 p.m. ET): The 2564.50 rally target I flagged here (see above) and in the Saloon on Friday morning caught Monday's high almost exactly. (Click here to see how exactly.) I'd recommended getting short at the target only to subscribers who'd made money on the way up, but there was only one person who appears to have done so, and that's why I haven't established a tracking position. The bullish phase of the trade was worth as much as $2300 per contract to anyone who got long when I first aired the target in the Saloon at 11:03 a.m. A short initiated subsequently at 2564.50 could have been covered for a profit of as much as $800 per contract, since the futures pulled back to 2547.25 after topping. If you need further guidance, ask in the chat room. _______UPDATE (Jan 8, 9:16 p.m.): Use the 2616.00 Hidden Pivot resistance shown here as a minimum upside target for the near term. As always, an easy move through so clear and compelling a 'D' would imply the trend is likely to continue. _______ UPDATE (Jan 9, 5:24 p.m.) A tedious day, so we lowered our sights to 2604.25, the target of a somewhat smaller pattern. Even

I've resumed tracking of the Gold Bugs Index because gold is busting out all over. (See my corresponding bullish comments on the yen elsewhere on this page.) Although HUI has made a mess of the 161.10 midpoint resistance, it is getting past it nonetheless. The sloppy price action suggests that the expected rally to D=171.26 will be labored, although not necessarily; we could be pleasantly surprised. We'll reassess the power of the move once we've seen how buyers interact with D=171.26. If they can push decisively past it, that would indicate that the trend is likely to continue.  Traders please note that if HUI goes no higher than 163 or so,  a pullback to 156.01 (the green line) would trip a mechanical buy signal.______ UPDATE (Jan 16, 8:25 p.m.): Far from gifting us with a pleasant surprise, the Gold Bugs Index has been positively leaden. It's close to setting up a 'counterintuitive' buy, but I will not explicitly recommend the trade. Instead, let's just watch and see whether bulls can seize the advantage that this type of trade typically affords them. _______ UPDATE (Jan 20): The 'counterintuitive' buying opportunity faded with barely a whimper Friday as HUI sank to a one-month low. It would take an upthrust touching 153.43 by Wednesday to revive it. _______ UPDATE (Jan 29): By now we should have become used to gold taking us to the brink of despair each and every time it is about to launch higher. HUI gapped past 153.43 three days ago and has been in a vertical parabola since. Call options easily bought for 0.07 ahead of the move are fetching 0.40-0.50 today with the stock trading around 123.74. The options are no longer such a fetching buy, not that they were much moreso at 0.07 with the stock in

Friday's powerful rally should encourage bulls -- but not too much, since the very bearish, 132.90 target shown in the inset is still well in play. (This Hidden Pivot differs somewhat from the 133.38 objective given here earlier.) One thing to notice is that a rally to 152.75, the green line, would trip an appealing signal to initiate a mechanical short, stop 159.37. Stay tuned to the chat room for further guidance in real time, since it may be possible to get short using puts.  We seldom use options when executing mechanical trades, but we will if the opportunity looks exceptional. _______ UPDATE (Jan 9, 5:36 p.m. ET): There were no good hooks for buying puts, so we'll paper-trade this one. As noted above, a print at 159.37 would stop out the short trade. I have no strong gut feeling either way. ______ UPDATE (Jan 12): A week's worth of of grunting and groaning failed to fill the 12-point gap left by AAPL's sensational dive on January 3. The mechanical short is still 'live', and although we passed up the opportunity, it will continue to inflect our trades with a bearish bias until such time as the trade is stopped out. Since I mentioned this in The Morning Line, let me make it semi-official by repeating it here: A drop below $100 is no longer unthinkable.  Alternatively, AAPL would need to pop above 157.20 to put bears back on their heels. _______ UPDATE (Jan 17, 10:30 p.m.): Since this rally stinks of distribution, let's not go too easy on bulls. I'm raising the threshold to 162.12 from 157.20 to signal a bullish breakout. Here's a fresh chart that shows why. _______ UPDATE (Jan 22, 10:58 p.m.): The strong rally of the last two weeks has so far fallen shy of

Friday's nasty reversal broke a three-week winning streak. Don't look for the futures to snap back right away, since the hourly chart went bearishly impulsive after buyers failed to achieve a clear target at 1302.50. The shortfall was just $2.10, but that's sufficient to imply that Feb Gold needs a rest. The foregoing is not chiseled in stone, of course, and we could be pleasantly surprised if gold comes roaring back Sunday night. If so, use 1309.40 as a target, subject to key resistance at p=1293.80. These Hidden Pivot levels are shown in the inset chart._______ UPDATE (Jan 16, 8:37 p.m.): When the tedium finally ends -- and it will, let me assure you -- expect the February contract to head for the 1311.1 target shown in this chart.  That is my minimum rally objective at the moment, the clearest target from among numerous bullish possibilities on the lesser charts.

This vehicle, which tracks the junior miners, is bound for 32.27 most immediately. A print at 33.95 would be nicely impulsive, since it would surpass an important peak recorded in July. Still better would be a move to 34.37, which would send the seven-year-old bear scurrying for cover; and best of all, a 36.07 print, which would turn the bear into a shaggy rug. Looking just ahead, traders should notice that a pullback from around 31.80 on the hourly chart would trip a mechanical buy signal at 31.19, stop 30.80. _______ UPDATE (Jan 16, 8:44 p.m.): Despite the turgid price action these last two weeks the hourly chart  remains quite bullish. Even so, GDXJ looks like it will correct further before it finds traction._______ UPDATE (Jan 28, 5:46 p.m.): Buyers have blasted off after finding their footing near 29. Today's decisive push past p=31.03 (click here for chart) implies more upside over the near term to at least 32.81.

Uh-oh! Again. The stock's $16 plunge today, exacerbated by a gap through a key Hidden Pivot support at 146.37, has all but clinched more downside to 133.38 (see inset). At that price Apple, until recently the most valuable company in the world, will have shed 43% of its value. This is the wealth effect in precipitous reversal, an implosion that foreshadows much larger losses that eventually will be felt as the bear market pulls the broad averages well below 'fair value'. I'll warn you in advance not to get sucked in if the stock rallies sharply without having reached 133.38. Indeed, if the bounce were to hit the green line at 152.87. that would generate a 'mechanical' shorting signal.

Apple shares got sacked again Thursday, falling to a $142 low that is nearly 40% beneath the record $233 achieved a mere 90 days ago. What were Apple's institutional sponsors thinking back then?  And why, as the stock began its wealth-vaporizing plunge, were the same giddy geniuses salivating over the prospect of adding massively to their positions if AAPL fell to a magic number somewhere around $170?  Now, of course, with 20-20 hindsight, they will all tell you exactly why the stock has plummeted and why it could fall even further. One Guy Who Got It Right Before we're inundated with such blather, let's give credit where it's due:  to Andy Kessler, the only guy we can recall getting Apple exactly right when almost no one had anything bad to say about the company. Last summer, when AAPL was climbing above $200 for the first time, he wrote the following in his Wall Street Journal column, 'Inside View': "Smartphones are now like radial tires. Everyone has one and they don’t wear out. Phone franchises are fickle. Ask Motorola or Nokia , if you can find them. One near-term sign of distress: Marketing tech products with splashy colors, as Steve Jobs did with tangerine iMacs almost 20 years ago, means the fun part is almost over. Apple hopes to make it up in services, but Google leads in maps, Netflix in video, and Uber in transportation. Apple is falling behind in most other growth segments. The company’s destructive seed is its desperate need for a new product category. It won’t be watches."  iPhone's Big Problem This was common sense rising above the bullish din, and it is why Rick's Picks regularly cited Kessler's list of indictments whenever we dissed Apple, which was often. (Click here for even more dissing, at ZeroHedge.)