Rick Ackerman

AAPL's failed rally on Friday shortened the odds of further weakness to the 164.33 target shown. The stock will have a chance to bounce from 168.10, the midpoint Hidden Pivot support, however, and this looks promising enough for me to suggest bottom-fishing for 200 shares with a 168.12 bid, stop 167.99. If you would prefer to substitute options, use Nov 24 167.50 calls, which should be trading for less than 0.50, and tie them to the stop-loss suggested above, but with an extra dime of leeway (i.e. 167.89) .

The suffocating weight of supply has become visually obvious in the hourly chart (click on inset). Are the S&Ps forming an important top? Odds are at least somewhat against it, given that the bull market has been chugging blithely along for 104 months. But there is no getting around the fact that bulls have been challenged to make headway for the last month or so. Moreover, they are certain to have difficulty keeping stocks levitated while investors await Q4 earnings in January that will have to top Q3's sensational results. From a Hidden Pivot perspective, the incipient weakness now in evidence could turn lethal if downtrending abc corrections start exceeding their midpoints pivots -- or even more bearishly, their 'd' targets. So far this hasn't happened. But we shouldn't be surprised if it does, and soon, since uptrending ABC patterns are having increasing trouble reaching their 'D' targets.  This is also shown in the chart. Notice that a recent rally almost precisely to p2=2595.25 fulfilled 'Matt's Curse' by reversing well shy of the 'D' target to take out the point 'C' low of the bullish pattern. This is a shot across the bow as far as I'm concerned, warning us to be acutely alert to any further signs of weakness, starting with dominant and corrective patterns on the sub-hourly charts._______ UPDATE (Nov 21, 12:18 p.m.):  Posted in the chat room at 9:03 a.m.): I'd suggest using this pattern on '60' to trade a 2608.25 target: A=2546.25 (10/25); B= 2594.50 (11/8); C= 2555.50. It signaled a mechanical buy yesterday at x=2568.69 that has produced an $1100 profit/contract so far. A pullback to p=2581.88 would offer a second chance to get long.

The Dow was up 187 points Thursday, but the rally was noticeably lacking in exuberance. Most of it occurred on a gap-up opening in the early minutes of the session (see inset), rendering it valueless to traders who began the day looking for a way to board the next rally. Perhaps they'll get their wish on Friday, only to regret it before day's end. Whatever happens, a test of buyers' mettle lies in the offing, since the broad averages are close enough to record highs that fly-or-die jeopardy will rule market psychology for the next few days. If the Dow Industrials come through with flying colors, keep 23517 in mind as a key resistance; anything above it, especially a close, would be bullish for the week ahead.

In the past, we’ve traded stocks priced above $1000 using ‘mechanical’ bids only. This is because entering on buy- or sell-stops could not guarantee a fill at our price. But suppose we were to allow some leeway, using stop-limit orders to get aboard? We had a chance to try this out in PCLN, which was trading for around $1724. Using sub-one-minute charts, we were able not only to get a perfect ‘read’ on the stock, but to set up trades that produced instant profits of $500 or more. See how, in explicit detail, by skipping to the final 15 minutes of this recording.

It’s hard to imagine the news getting much sunnier than it was for the earnings cycle just reported. What will Amazon, Apple, Google and the other FANG stocks do for an encore? More to the point, what will they do for the next three months? At these very high prices, the task of rotating institutional cash till January, when earnings are next reported, will be like juggling bowling balls. The task will be even harder because Wall Street doesn’t have much “story” left to sell, at least none that could conceivably top what we’ve just heard. Think about it. Nearly every human being on the planet already has a relationship with Facebook, Netflix, Google, Apple, Amazon or Microsoft. We see the investable implications of companies with a global customer base in the enormous leap Netflix took in early October, when they announced a $1.00 price increase for subscriptions. The stock rocketed from $176 to $204 in two weeks, expanding the economic effect of the $1.00 surcharge like dry kernels popping in a kettle. It’s not every day that Wall Street gets to deploy vast sums of cash in the shares of a company that can bring revenues so efficiently down to the bottom line.  With so many customers, their future success seems pretty predictable -- assuming no one in Netflix’s entertainment division goes all Cecil B. DeMille on them. Rotate This! With the best imaginable news already past, it's hard to imagine what will keep stocks afloat in the months ahead. And that's why the weakness of the last two days should not simply be shrugged off as benignly corrective to the needs of institutional buyers. Are the big guys tapped out? Well, perhaps in a way. For even if they individually have assets that pile effortlessly to $50 billion

Elsewhere on the page I've predicted a boring stretch for the stock market because AAPL for a rare change has the blahs. This probably won't last much longer -- it never does -- but there's no way the broad averages are headed higher as long as Apple shares are taking even baby steps lower.  If there is market risk here, it comes from the prospect that the October CPI number due to be released today will come in lower than the expected 1.7%-2.0%. If so, the Fed's tightening project, already lacking in credibility, would be even more in doubt. The datum will be announced at 8:30 a.m., an hour before the NYSE opening bell. Index futures were trading lower Tuesday night, seeming to discount a weak inflation number. As traders, we're probably blessed not to know what the number will be.

Buyers have gone soft nearly $5 shy of the 181.11 Hidden Pivot we were using as a minimum upside target. After climbing no higher than 176.24, AAPL has come down hard since last Wednesday and now looks like a good bet to fall to at least 170.02 before it finds traction. At that point the stock will be feeling an urgent downward tug to fill the 3-point gap that occurred on November 3.  If in fact things play out that way, the stock market is certain to get dragged lower too, since the broad averages rarely go their separate way when AAPL is feeling blue.  Since sellers have long lacked the moxie to strike hard when things are going their way, and because the buy-the-dip mentality is probably as strong as it ever has been, we may be in for a boring stretch. _______ UPDATE (Nov 15, 10:08 p.m.) AAPL did in fact fill the gap noted above, with an opening bar that touched 168.38.  The subsequent bounce looked like sucker bait, so expect the stock to fall even lower today.  A logical minimum downside objective would be 165.25, where Apple shares bottomed on 11/2 ahead of a sharp,  fleeting rally. The net effect, ignoring overnight bars, is a bearish island-gap reversal pattern shown here. _______ UPDATE (Nov 16, 5:14 p.m.): The so-far two day bounce has yet to exceed any prior peaks even on the lowly 15-minute chart, so it remains suspect.  A print at 172.14 would tip the short-term outlook mildly bullish, but 173.26 would be significantly better.

The 7562 target I first aired here on November 5 for the NYSE's bitcoin product (ticker symbol: NYXBT) came within $40 of nailing the top of the recent blow-off. The rally subsequently gave way to a spectacular, $1000 plunge from which the cryptocurrency has yet to fully recover.  Although the forecast was not quite a bullseye, I expect my accuracy to improve significantly when the CME's Bitcoin futures contract begins to trade later this year.  For now, let me offer the 8338 target shown for NYXBT. It is by no means a lock-up at this point, and it could change if NYXBT were to dip beneath the 6573 point 'C' low of the pattern shown. If not and it simply heads higher, a quick move past 7014 (i.e., the green line) would put D=8338 in  play.  That number, a Hidden Pivot resistance, would become an odds-on bet to be achieved if buyers blow past p=7455 with ease. If you trade this product or are fascinated by Bitcoin's nutty price swings, stay tuned to Rick's Picks in real time for sane and precise intraday guidance, since it may be possible to generate a relatively low-risk entry signal using the Hidden Pivot 'camouflage' technique or a 'mechanical' entry set-up.  If you don't subscribe but want to join in the fun, click here for a two-week free trial to Rick's Picks, including access to a 24/7 chat room that draws great traders from around the world.

[I am airing this for a second day so that readers are well prepared for Wednesday's CPI data. It could significantly impact U.S. and global markets.]  Bloomberg News has been drum-rolling Wednesday' scheduled release of CPI data, since a report suggesting inflation has remained subdued will complicate the Fed's task of convincing the world more tightening is urgently needed.  Yellen & Co. gave up pretending inflation was a big problem a few months ago, ostensibly because the only place this seemed to be true -- to an appalling degree -- was in real estate and stocks.  More recently, even with the Fed's benighted lackeys in the news media blaring increasingly shrill warnings that inflation is about to return with a vengeance, no one seems panicked. Maybe it's because American workers haven't gotten a real pay raise in forty years.  You can bet they're not cheering for more tightening. Meanwhile, bond markets have been acting as though higher administered rates are certain. But if October's CPI number comes in at 1.7% as expected -- or, heaven forbid, a little lower -- look for the Fed to amp up its warnings about how a supposed global economic boom is about to touch off a spiral of inflation. I'll believe it when workers start asking for, and getting, big pay raises. Until then, we should continue to regard each 25-basis-point hike by the Fed as another trigger-pull in a game of Russian roulette. Sooner or later, tightening, however timid and fake, is going to have its effect on the quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble -- a cosmic-size juggernaut of potential deflation that someday will put the central banks' awesomeness in a more sober perspective. (Click here for an explanation of how the flattest yield curve in more than a decade could eventually send the