Rick Ackerman

Bertie's brutish poke through the 54,914 Hidden Pivot resistance shown here left little doubt about where its fat-cat sponsors are taking it next.  Shifting to a bullish ABCD pattern of higher degree yields a 64,871 target that should be used as a minimum upside projection for the near term. The nasty C-D leg has yet to gift bulls with a 'mechanical' buying opportunity, so we won't count on one. Trading interest has all but vanished from the chat room lately, but I'll be around as always if you want to bounce a timely idea off me. _____ UPDATE (Oct 19, 9:12 p.m. ET): Time once again to raise our sights — this time to 89,780, the highest target I can project using the larger charts. Judging from the way the usual lunatics chased this vehicle through the red line (p=59,302), more upside to at least p2=74,542 looks all but certain. Every level of the pattern — x, p and p2 — will be in play for ‘mechanical’ entries, with a ‘camouflage’ alternative if were are not blessed with any pullbacks violent enough for the ‘mechanical’ set-up. _______ UPDATE (Oct 21,, 8:46 a.m.): This morning's violent swoon has reminded us why Bertie is not for amateurs. The $4289 dip-on-steroids undoubtedly shook out a few rubes, although the fat cats, including banks with no actual skin in the game, couldn't have cared less about their fleeting losses. This chart shows that the shakedown, nasty as it was, wasn't quite severe enough to bring Bertie down to the green line, where a no-brainer 'mechanical' bid could have been waiting. However, the red line (p=63,308 here) could have been used as well, albeit with more initial risk, using a stop-loss at 61,876 that easily held. _______ UPDATE (Oct 21, 6:10 p.m.): A 'mechanical' bid

Our attention is wasted looking for this dog to break out, since it has been going tediously sideways since January. Hope springs eternal, of course, but we needn't take unnecessary risks to indulge it. It's simply a matter of when the chimpanzees agree that 'value' stocks should be in vogue once again. They'll let us know after they've goosed it beyond easy reach, implying that the only way to get aboard is when it is going tediously sideways. However, the very rightmost edge of the chart -- the last four bars, actually -- contains the impulsive rudiments we would need to attempt this.  Query me in the chat room and I'll explain with a more detailed chart. _______ UPDATE (Oct 12, 9:58 p.m.): The 30-minute chart has stopped out bulls no fewer than three times since last Thursday, implying that IWM is trying hard to break out with no fans aboard. We probably won't be either, since catching a ride with risk under tight control is too labor-intensive for a vehicle that few subscribers seem to care about. ______ UPDATE (Oct 14, 11:24 p.m.): How very shocking. IWM opened on a gap this morning that would have left any hesitant bulls choking on dust. Let's see how far DaBoyz can take this short squeeze on a Friday. Wherever it stops, it is guaranteed to be too dangerous a place for taking a position over the weekend.

If I had to pick one chart that shows why the bull market is probably not over, it would be the one above. To be sure, the 157.26 peak recorded by Apple shares a month ago was a great place for an important top to have occurred; this chart shows why. But THE top? I have my doubts. For if this were so, it would rank as one of the most visually boring summits ever achieved. For permabears who have waited patiently for a fitting climax to the most most insane bull market of them all, it would be like finding a WaWa Market at the top of a Himalayan peak they'd almost died scaling. Setting the Hook A few forecasters had precisely predicted a potentially important top at or very near $157, including your editor. Some of us even profited from put butterfly spreads purchased a month earlier that more than quintupled in value with AAPL's 12% drop so far. But it could be pressing one's luck to hold out for more, since the downtrend seems to be struggling increasingly and made no progress at all last week. Perhaps the selloff will turn nasty in the week ahead. But if so, keep in mind that a plunge to the green line would actually be bullish, tripping a 'mechanical' buy signal based on Rick's Picks' proprietary Hidden Pivot Method.  It would also imply an eventual rally to as high as 187.93. This scenario is congruent with one I raised here last week -- i.e., that the stock market will rally to yet one more record high, setting the hook in bulls and short-covering bears alike. A steep plunge in the weeks ahead would make a reversal to new highs even more persuasive, and therefore more deadly. Whatever happens, AAPL is

Gold's pointless histrionics have been surprisingly tradeable, albeit only by Pivoteers who know what they're doing. Notice how Friday's stupid spike early in the session reversed from the secondary Hidden Pivot at 1782.70. Any rABC pattern one might have used to set up a short would have worked, although the pullback was so precipitous that executing a stop entry would have been challenging.  Some subscribers may also recognize that 'Matt's Curse'  took effect when the reversal occurred precisely at p2. This usually means the retracement will take out the point 'C' low of the pattern. We shall see, but if it happens we shouldn't take it too seriously, since gold has been visiting pain equally on bulls and bears alike for the last several weeks. _______ UPDATE (Oct 13, 4:20 p.m.): And speaking of pointless histrionics, you had to love gold's $40 lunatic leap today after spasming $20 both ways in the early going. A short a millimeter off the intraday high produced a profit for the subscriber who reported the trade in the chat room, but the pullback made little progress as the hours went on, suggestion that bullion's 'DaBoyz' aim to take this gas-case higher. Here's a pattern so gnarly that I can all but guarantee that it will work in every possible way, including shorting at 1810.50 via a 'camouflage' set-up. That means you could buy a pullback to p=1780.20 'mechanically' with a stop-loss at 1770.10. That's $4000 of entry risk on four full-size contracts, so minis are recommended unless you are trading with winnings racked up earlier. ______ UPDATE (Oct 15, 7:29 a.m.): When the little p.o.s. plunged overnight to within 70 cents of my 1780.20 bottom-fishing number, I used this rABC pattern to drastically cut the entry risk to $480 on four contracts. The trade

With trillions in reckless stimulus as a backdrop, it seems counterintuitive to speak of the dollar as being in a boring consolidation. But that's what the long-term charts are saying. I'm a dollar permabull myself, since I see a deflationary endgame for the global financial bubble. But I must concede that if the Dollar Index is eventually headed to 120 or higher as I've been predicting, it is in no hurry to get there.  The chart doesn't give much support to dollar bears, though. The most bearish thing that could be said about it is that even though the greenback has risen only very modestly this year from the lows of a five-year range, it is already getting pretty overbought.  This sluggishness is worth watching, but it is not at all menacing at present.  Keep in mind as well that merely being overbought does not preclude the possibility of an enormous rally while this condition exists; it happens all the time. For the time being, however, you can tune out all the noise and 'expert' opinion concerning the dollar, especially the bearish kind.

ES moved more or less according to forecast on Friday. Although I'd touted an avalanche as likely, for scalping purposes I also proffered bottom-fishing guidance in the chat room that caught the intraday lows in QQQ, DIA and ES within a tenth of a percent. I'd intended to trade for a bounce, and that is still what I think we are seeing notwithstanding its seeming power. In Hidden Pivot terms the rally is still a relative weakling, having exceeded just two of six 'external' peaks on the hourly chart.  Although we shouldn't presume too strongly against a waxing rally, bulls should still have to prove their case one peak at a time before we resign ourselves to new record highs. (That would not make me more bullish, for reasons I've explained in the current commentary concerning IBM's head-fake in 2009.) For now, use the 4224.75 target shown in this chart as a minimum downside objective. It will remain theoretically valid until such time as C=4469.50 is exceeded. A rally to the green line (4408.31) would trip a 'mechanical' short, stop 4470.00, but I am recommending this trade only to Pivoteers who know how to cut the $12,000 entry risk on four contracts by 90% or more using a 'camouflage' trigger.  However, pending a possible tone change Sunday night, your trading bias should be bullish if you can handle entry signals on the sub-hourly charts. _____ UPDATE (Oct 4, 4:28 p.m.): Yet another timid showing by bears, this one failed to take out Friday's low. String together enough such failures and bulls eventually will seize the advantage.  Monday is typically their worst day to scare up a bounce, but the herd looked poised nonetheless for a 'turnaround Tuesday'. ______ UPDATE (Oct 5, 5:20 p.m.): Bulls turned things around with a vertical

Friday's spirited bounce came from within a split hair of the 'discomfort zone' low I'd proffered in the chat room a day earlier, but bulls shouldn't get their hopes too high. Although I am open to the possibility that this short-squeeze rally will pick up tempo enough to set up a lunatic leap to new all-time highs, that's not what I expect. Notice the head-and-shoulders formation in the chart (inset). Although fans of this pattern could have asked for better symmetry on the right shoulder, the overall look of it is impressively bearish.  The effect is compounded by an 'island reversal' that effectively stranded a mountain of supply above the shoulder line. Another factor giving bears the edge is that the 382.78 top on September 7 occurred just three cents above a Hidden Pivot target I'd drum-rolled back in January.  All of the above argues for a bearish bias for trading the bigger charts.  Please note that the smaller ones have yet to produce a bullish impulse leg even on the lowly 15-minute chart, shown here. (The same is true of AAPL, our #1 bellwether and proxy for institutional mindset: Its ostensibly nasty short squeeze on Friday did not exceed a single prior peak even on the '15'.) _______ UPDATE (Oct 4, 5:05 p.m.): Here's a nice pattern that projects down to 341.87.  Let's see if bears can crack the midpoint support on Tuesday. _______ UPDATE (Oct 5, 5:23 p.m.):  QQQ went the wrong way, tripping a mildly appealing 'mechanical' short at the green line (356.41). We'll spectate this time rather than pray for ruin overnight. ______ UPDATE (Oct 6, 8:26 p.m.): The would-be short failed to touch the red line where it could have been covered, suggesting DaBoyz were bullishly in control from the get-go this morning. They will

Last week produced an exceptional one-day rally, then a sideways follow-through that looks like a bullish consolidation. The start of something big?  Probably not, but we should take the possibility seriously, since, if stocks have entered a bear market, that would be the kind of paradigm shift that could change a picture in bullion that has remained stagnant for a year. I've displayed a weekly chart to put the rally in perspective: it is not even a blip, at least not yet. Nor should we get too excited if a fresh burst hits the green line, triggering a theoretical buy signal of long-term degree. That's happened twice since last summer, only to fail with the creation of two new point 'C' lows. This time price action so far is arguably less bullish, since the reaction rally off mid-August's stop-'em-out low didn't even reach the green line, nor was it impulsive on the weekly chart. I can offer no trading suggestions at the moment, but if you are scouting the lesser charts for opportunities, please don't hesitate to ask about them in the chat room. _____ UPDATE (Oct 4, 5:10 p.m. ET): If bears can chew through p=1770 tonight they'll be in good shape for a follow-through to the 1792.40 target of this pattern.  Using 'camouflage' to avoid $1100 of entry risk per contract, buy a pullback to the green line 'mechanically' if the opportunity should arise, especially in the wee hours.  _______ UPDATE (Oct 5, 6:53 a.m.): The trade triggered at 12:39 a.m., 14 minutes after the futures pulled back to the green line (1758.90). The set-up, shown here on the one-minute chart, produced a gain on four contracts of as much as $480 in 40 minutes before gold peaked shortly thereafter and dove. Initial, theoretical risk would have been

Silver has rallied off a low that didn't quite make it down to a 'D' target, and that is slightly bullish. I've redrawn the chart to show the new downside target of a bigger pattern in order to provide counterpoint to a somewhat more bullish chart in gold (see above). To get a more balanced feel for bullion, we'll treat this rally as a 'mechanical' shorting opportunity -- either at the red line (22.65), or possibly the green (23.80).  The first trade was elected last week and on Friday was slightly profitable. It would take a stop-loss at 23.42, although I'm not suggesting doing the trade belatedly. If the rally continues to the green line, the stop on a short there would be just above  the 'C' high, at 24.95. We may attempt it, so stay tuned to the chat room. Short-term, your bias should lean bullish.