Rick Ackerman

Gold's breach of the 1267.40 target we've been using as a minimum downside objective has brought the prospect of yet more misery into focus. Specifically, I am now suggesting that you use the 1235.90 Hidden Pivot shown as a minimum downside objective for August Gold. I particularly like this 'hidden' support because the pattern itself is so gnarly. We've learned over time that such patterns are the ones that work best, since their provenance is so obscure -- even to those used to seeing so-called Gartley 1-2-3 patterns. Traders should note that a rally to the green line would trigger a 'mechanical' short in theory; otherwise we should expect to see the August futures make their way to 1235.90, at least. As always, an easy breach of so compelling a target would portend even lower prices. I still doubt that gold will fall below $1,000, although that will be scant comfort to bulls who have experienced the acute disappointment of the last two months. _______ UPDATE (June 26, 6;57 p.m. EDT): The 1235.90 target remains not just valid, but compelling. However, the 1253.80 target of the lesser pattern shown in this chart also looks capable of generating a bounce, possibly a tradeable one. _______ UPDATE (June 27, 12:29 p.m.): The futures have reversed sharply, rallying $3.60 so far from within 50 cents of the 1253.80 target flagged above. If two or more subscribers used it to bottom-fish, I will provide tracking guidance, so please let me know in the chat room. You should take a partial profit now if you bought more than one contract.  _______ UPDATE (June 27, 9:51 p.m.): Chat-roomers reported doing some profitable bottom-fishing by playing the 1253.80 target for a bounce, but I haven't established a tracking position because this brick subsequently slipped below the support.

There are numerous bullish targets in play, making it challenging to pick a logical spot for AMZN to top. That is not our game, however; we are more interested in minimum upside projections that will allow us to trade with a bullish bias up until the very threshold of danger.  In that regard, I will warrant the 1801.43 Hidden Pivot shown as a reliable objective for any trader who wants to continue surfing the trend. The stock could stall there or even create a major high.  But if buyers blow past it, the next rally objective likely to be achieved would be 1832.18.  (This 'hidden' resistance is calculated by simply sliding the point 'A' low down to  September's 931.85 bottom four bars to the left of the one shown.) Usually, shifting to the hourly chart produces precise clarity for very short-term forecasts. In this case, the 60-minute bars leave us hanging on a cliff, since they show a possible top at 1769.10; Thursday's actual high was 1763.95.  Although that may sound close enough for government work, Pivoteers have been given to expect a more exact 'hit'.  Even so, it's sufficiently close that we shouldn't be surprised if AMZN comes down hard from here. ______UPDATE (June 24, 9:47 p.m.) DaBoyz have opened AMZN on short-squeeze gaps on the last two days, creating more than a faint whiff of desperation.  Whatever they are feeling, odds have grown that last week's high, which fell a tad shy of our target, may have been an important one. For now, use the 1698.10 target shown as a minimum downside objective for the near term. If it gets crushed, that would reinforce my already mildly bearish bias. _______ UPDATE (June 25, 2018): Today's relentless selling breached two 'external' lows on the daily chart. This generated a

Look for today's moderate weakness to continue until the 2743.25 target shown is achieved. Night owls may be able to make hay with it by trading with the trend until the pivot is reached, or by bottom-fishing if and when the futures get there.  Notice that the rally begun around 1:00 p.m. generated a very appealing 'mechanical' short when it reached the green line at 2758.44. The trade initially went $150 per contract in-the-red, but before day's end it had produced a paper profit of as much as $550. Meanwhile, the decisive downside penetration of p has made a follow-through to D=2843.25 and odds-on bet. _______ UPDATE (June 22, 8:25 a.m. EDT): The futures reversed overnight after having exceeded by just a few ticks the p2 support shown in the chart.  The reversal that followed has been a ratcheting short-squeeze that lasted the night and which is setting up for a second-wind squeeze to muscle through a shelf of supply created yesterday on the way down. It is all distribution as far as I'm concerned, clever and particularly opportunistic of light volume, so be careful.

The FAANGs are screaming, and woe to any trader who attempts to resist the charge.  However, the broad averages lack the gumption to follow even timidly and will likely act as a brake on the insanity that has been driving NFLX and AMZN in particular moonward. However steeply these two stocks rise, they are still very targetable, even precisely so. Check my latest trading 'touts' to see where their respective rallies could conceivably fail -- and where to take the odds.

Netflix is my least favorite stock: overrated, overpriced, and over-owned by money managers who seem to think every person on Earth will eventually subscribe.  That may be true for Facebook, but Netflix is a different animal.  In the beginning, the company succeeded with an ingenious business model that required intensive use of the Postal Service to ship DVD movies back and forth. Their secret sauce was a vaunted algorithm that told customers which movies they would most enjoy. Netflix deserves credit not only for surviving the transition to streaming entertainment, but for remaining a dominant purveyor of it. But the algorithm?  It stinks. Like a trading-system algorithm, its performance has inexorably deteriorated over time. The result is that the choices it serves up are akin to cream of wheat vs. oatmeal vs. grits. Embarrassingly Bad Movies Even if the algorithm were doing its job, Netflix's catalogue of movie and TV entertainment is so uninspired that it barely improves on basic cable's 99-channel swill. Their inventory of movies in particular is an embarrassment -- hundreds and hundreds of them with no-name actors and straight-to-TV production values. Nor has Netflix produced a series remotely in the same league as Fox's 24 or some of HBO's best, including Deadwood, Boardwalk Empire and The Sopranos. House of Cards may have won awards, but only judged by the standards of a mostly-millennials audience that regards Lena Dunham as a genius. None of this seems to matter to the one-decision, institutional bozos who earn princely sums throwing OPM at the stock. It has risen vertically for the last two days even though the Dow and the S&Ps have gone nowhere. Now is the time to short NFLX, however, since it is closing fast on an important Hidden Pivot target that looks likely to show precise stopping

The bearish impulsiveness of today's plunge is palpable on the intraday charts (see inset), but it doesn't quite inspire me to go out on a limb with a prediction for Wednesday. However, with a little more development, the presumably downtrending ABCs will become clear enough that we will be able to repeat yesterday's 'parlor trick' in real time, nailing a swing high or low with sufficient precision to make it tradeable even using puts or calls. Many evidently did so on Tuesday, buying June 275 SPY calls at or near their 0.42 intraday low. They rose to 1.16 within hours, making it easy to double one's money or better. It was also apparent that more than a few chat-roomers were already short from the previous day, in part because of the timely, unhedged bearishness of the Rick's Picks home page. Stick around and we'll try to make hay again in real time, possibly using options, as so many subscribers seem to prefer.______ UPDATE (June 20, 8:37 p.m.): The day's histrionics failed to push above any 'external' peaks, even on the lowly 30-minute chart. It'll take a print at 2780.50 to accomplish that, but it should be no sweat if there are even just a few nervous bears around. I don't trust this rally, but we'll go with the flow for now. 

Although the broad averages have risen sharply in each of the last three sessions, none of these short-squeeze lollapaloozas has recouped the even bigger losses sustained earlier in the day. Do we detect a pattern here? The biztainment media seem to wax enthusiastic whenever stocks trampoline off some ugly low like Tuesday's. But we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that if the three-steps-down, two-steps-up dynamic witnessed in recent days were to continue for long enough, the Dow would eventually fall to zero. That will never happen, of course, even when the trumpets sound from on high. But it is a good description of how bear markets typically unfold -- i.e., with shares initially falling on most days, gaining momentum until sellers are spent; then, rallying so spectacularly as to fill the crippled, wounded and maimed with hope. "Hope" is the last thing an investor should want to feel, the last refuge of the loser. Don't Get Sucked In! I mention all of this so that Rick's Picks readers don't get sucked into what feels like flagrant and pernicious distribution lately by the smart money. For all of us, of course, it is ultimately about profiting no matter what the market does, and we should expect to do so regardless of which way stocks are headed. On Tuesday, for instance, a SPY chart posted in the chat room by "Nervis Novice" prompted some Hidden Pivot analysis that caught the exact-to-the-penny 273.53 low of a plunge that saw the Dow down more that 400 points at low ebb. A timely interpretation of Nervis' chart allowed subscribers to buy expiring June 275 calls at or near their low of the day, 0.42, for a quick and easy doubler. (The options nearly tripled, actually, trading as high as 1.16 before the session ended.)

Tonight's selloff smells exactly like the one that occurred Sunday night. It was followed by a short-squeeze rally at the opening bell, and that's what I expect to happen again. Night owls needn't sit on their thumbs, however, since the downtrend has produced two dandy Hidden Pivot supports that look capable of supporting bids stopped as tightly as two ticks. To bottom-fish the higher target, use a 2759.25 bid, stop 2758.75; and a 2755.25 bid, stop 2754.50, for the lower number. ________ UPDATE (June 19, 8:23 a.m.):  Neither of the Hidden Pivot supports I'd noted above evinced a bounce, much less a tradeable one. This is the most urgent selling we've seen since mid-March. DaBoyz seem to have exhausted sellers at 2735, but the unpersuasive rebound ahead of the opening bell means the low is going to be tested.

Index futures are getting pummeled for the second straight night, supposedly because of heightened tariff fears. How is it that these fears lay dormant throughout Monday's boring session, only to resurface like a torrent of Kilauea lava during off-hours trading? As a former floor trader myself, I'd attribute this dynamic to the ease with which stocks can be manipulated when there's no one around. In this case, the goal of the sleazeballs who dominate thin markets is to exhaust sellers, the better to run stocks up bears' old wazoo when they come to their trading screens in the morning. This is what happened Sunday night: a volume-less selloff equivalent to nearly 200 Dow points was reversed at the opening bell by an almost-as-gratuitous rally. Distribution Masked There was a net loss on the day, however, which suggests that stocks are under distribution and that the true reasons for the weakness are being masked by headlines attributing the selling mainly to tariff fears.  In actuality, Trump's latest art-of-the-deal salvo against China took the form of higher levies on things we no longer buy much of from them -- stuff like cathode ray tubes. Not that the supposed trade war couldn't lurch out of control with just a small miscalculation by Trump. But don't believe that that's the only thing weighing on the markets right now. A strong dollar, higher oil prices, a downturn in housing, rising interest rates, and corporate earnings that have  probably peaked are all factors. Meanwhile, night owls take heed: From a Hidden Pivot perspective, the E-Mini S&P chart (click on inset) tells me that the next, half-baked rally will come off a low at exactly 2759.00; or if not there, from 2754.75. _______ UPDATE (June 19, 8:31 a.m.): No bounce whatsoever from either pivot. This is warning