Rick Ackerman

After screwing the pooch since December 18, the futures have yet to exceed by more than a single tick the 2698.00 Hidden Pivot resistance we'd used to stay on the right side of the trend.  I'd also recommended getting short there with a stop-loss as tight as 3.25 points. The pullback so far has been relatively shallow, suggesting bulls are unlikely to simply go away.  If they can keep the heat on bears for another day or two, look for the move to continue to at least 2710.50.  Anything above that would imply buyers are starting to feel their oats as the new year gets under way. _______ UPDATE (Jan 3, 9:04 p.m. EST): Much as I hate to see a good Hidden Pivot rally target go to waste, there is no getting around the fact that the 4-point overshoot of my 2710.50 resistance is bullish. I didn't explicitly advise getting short there because the futures have had such trouble selling off recently. But if the little s.o.b. moves above 2712.50 overnight, I'd cover any shorts you may have held at the closing bell.

Bitcoin's crazy shenanigans are making the news media's attempts to keep up with them seem pathetic. Bloomberg's latest update, from four hours ago, has trumpeted the headline Bitcoin Starts a New Year by Tumbling, First Time Since 2015.  In actual fact, after trading moderately lower on the opening bar of 2018, one popular bitcoin vehicle, $BRTI, is currently up $263, at 13,849. Ordinarily Rick's Picks would suggest using a 'mechanical' entry to short the little sonofabitch if the rally hits $14,277, using a stop-loss at 16,477. We'll pass this time, however, and resume actionable guidance after traders have had a few days to shake off mind-dulling excesses of holiday food, libations and festivity. Stay tuned if you care -- and please note that all real-time trading recommendations will be published here first, then at FXStreet.com as soon as they can get to them.

If there's a New Year's wish we can all share, it is that 2018 be as uninteresting as possible. My personal benchmark would be 1959. Ike was President, I was ten, and America had tailfins on its mind. Granted, Nikita Khrushchev seemed menacing even to a kid, and cowering beneath school desks during air raid drills didn't seem so quaintly silly at the time. But all in all it was a pretty dull year. Would that 2018 proves to be just a boring refrain! However it goes, I wish you all good health, happy tidings and even more-inflated share prices. If there are any surprises, let them be pleasant ones, and if weather stories are going to be in the headlines, let them be about Punxsutawney Phil rather than hurricanes, droughts and mudslides. May your hold times be short and the tech support people you reach speak English and know what they are doing.

The penultimate trading day of the year left the Dow Industrials with unfinished business. All it would have taken to reach the 25,278 target shown was another 439 points of giddyap. Alas, DaBoyz were not about to stick their necks out with an act of daring they might have regretted. Perhaps they will pick up the pace on Friday with a finishing stroke more powerful than any of the wafting rallies we've seen since early December?  Regardless, given the ferocity of the move through the red line on December 8, the target seems almost certain to be achieved. And because of the precise interaction over time between the Indoos and the red line, a midpoint Hidden Pivot, I expect a tradable pullback from within inches of 25,278.  Plan accordingly, but check the chat room for real-time guidance when appropriate.

The markets were predictably sluggish as stocks surfed the thermals of a holiday-packed week. Even so, we had time to advance the state of Hidden Pivotry with some finely nuanced observations centered on the E-Mini S&Ps in particular. The result was the formulation of a new and potentially very useful rule for setting up ‘mechanical’ trades. That’s why this lesson is a must-view for any Pivoteer who missed the live class.

It was predictable that the stock market would try to bore us to death this week, presumably by wafting moderately higher on each successive day. Instead, we've seen the broad averages go nowhere, head-butting the record highs set ten days ago without showing enough pluck to impale them.  Are DaBoyz saving their short-squeeze ammo for 2018? Seems like a safe bet, since it's hard to imagine the smart money starting the new year with a thud -- especially considering how revved up Wall Street and the financial news media have been in recent weeks. All systems are go, it would seem, and what could possibly go wrong?

This will likely be the last bitcoin trade I put out in 2017. We are four-for-five so far, racking up substantial paper gains with just one small loss over the last several weeks. This time I will recommend bidding 13,555 for a single round lot, stop 10,912. The is a day order, good till 4:00 p.m. EST Thursday. Please note that the CME symbol $BRTI is not directly tradable, since it represents an aggregation of order book bids and offers. Specifically, it reflects the highest unmatched bid and the lowest unmatched offer at a given instant on numerous trading exchanges. To 'trade' $BRTI, you would need to interpolate my numbers using your own favorite vehicle.  My point in disseminating these trades at Rick's Picks and FXStreet.com is to demonstrate the usefulness and relative ease of 'mechanical' set-ups for initiating trades in vehicles that fluctuate violently.  A key feature of 'mechanical' trades is that they are always executed with limit bits (or limit offers when entering short positions), rather than stop-orders that can leave one uncertain as to whether an order has filled. The 'mechanical' trade is proprietary to my Hidden Pivot Method, and it is the tactic we have used most often in recent months to initiate trades in bitcoin and certain other rabid, pricey killers such as AMZN. ______ UPDATE (Dec 28, 5:47 p.m.): $BRTI plummeted nearly $2000 from its intraday peak, making a low at $13,562 that missed filling our bid by $7. It has since rallied $700  -- alas, without us aboard. Oh, well, there will always be another opportunity.

Economist John Hussman cuts to the chase in this nails-hard analysis of a bull market that has been fueled mainly by distortions of fact.  The title of his essay is Three Delusions: Paper Wealth, a Booming Economy, and Bitcoin, and it is a must-read for anyone who believes stocks have reached, to recall Prof. Irving Fisher's immortal words, a permanently high plateau.  Hussman says there has not yet been sufficient deterioration in the stock market's 'internals' to sound the alarm, but that we are getting close.

February Gold has now climbed nearly $50 since turning on December 12 from within an inch of a 1237.40 correction target I'd flagged well in advance. The futures were trading a few points below 1290 on Tuesday, but they will need to leap past 1321.00 to imply that buyers are serious. That would generate a bullish impulse leg on the DAILY chart. It would also exceed the 1314.00 midpoint resistance of a pattern projecting as high as 1389.60 (click on inset to see this). That target is fanciful at this point, but odds of its being reached would shorten with a decisive penetration of p=1314.00 or a two-day close above it. _______ UPDATE (Jan 1, 8:42 p.m. EST): February Gold has not achieved even the lower of the two bullish benchmarks flagged above.  (Click here for new chart.) However, last week's strong, steady rally is reason to take encouragement. Let's see what another day or two brings.