Rick Ackerman

DIA blew past a clear Hidden Pivot resistance at 217.45 on Friday with such panache that we must assume new record-highs are coming. If so, you can use the 220.19 target shown as a minimum upside projection. A pullback to the red line can be bought 'mechanically,' stop 214.54; or, with somewhat less risk, to the green line, stop 211.69. We hold four put options purchased for 0.82 that should be tied to a 0.55 stop-loss. That means you should sell them at-the-market if they trade for 0.55.  Our theoretical loss on the position would be $108. _______ UPDATE (Jul 31): An hour before trading ended last week the puts fell to our stop; then, they subsequently traded as low as 0.48 before the closing bell. You should have exited the position. We'll try again when appropriate, always with little patience or tolerance for trades that don't go our way when we are trying to pick a top. The fact that DIA paid no heed to so clear a Hidden Pivot resistance suggests Mr Market aims to inflict yet more punishment on bears. This time, he beat us for a big $108._______ UPDATE (Aug 2, 10:45 a.m.): DIA topped this morning at 220.13, exactly 0.06 points from the rally target I'd provided, before falling to a so-far low at 219.54. If you got short at the top please let me know in the chat room so that I can determine whether to establish a tracking position. _______UPDATE (Aug 3, 12:03 a.m.): Only one subscriber reported having gotten short using my rally target, so I have not established a tracking position. Regardless, the 69-cent pullback that followed the high should have been used to take a partial profit. Assuming you did, you should tie what remains to a 220.21 stop-loss.

Gold did what we asked of it on Friday but not much more. The August contract need only have achieved a 1268.70 target first broached here nearly a week ago to stay on a bullish track. The actual high was 1270.00, or 1.30 points more than we'd required. The overshoot was not sufficient to ensure a robust follow-through on Monday, but it nevertheless generated a very subtle impulse leg that we may be able to use to get aboard with entry risk tightly controlled. I have sketched the ABC pattern for your guidance, but initiating the trade could be tricky due to the relatively tiny k-A segment.  It implies that even Friday's minuscule pullback from the intraday high may prove sufficient to have created a valid b-c leg. For that reason, the trade is recommended for experienced Pivoteers only.

DaBoyz were unable to hoist the futures to new record highs on Friday, but they sprinkled enough meat tenderizer on bears to be in good position to goad them into short-covering when the new week begins. I'll suggest using the pattern shown, with a modest rally target at 2489.50, to guide you over the next day or two. An easy move past the midpoint Hidden Pivot at 2473.25, especially in the early going, would all but guarantee a quick move to the target. There is a 'dueling' downtrend in this chart as well, and so I'll also suggest placing a bid for a single contract at 2450.50, a tick above the 'd' target, stop 2449.50. The order would be invalidated by a print exceeding 2473.00. You'll be on your own if it fills.______ UPDATE (Aug 3, 12:09 a.m. EDT): Wednesday's gratuitous swoon left me with no enthusiasm for trading this rabid wolverine today._______ UPDATE (Aug 3, 7:07 p.m.): Zzzzzzzzzz.

Thursday's swoon was bearishly impulsive on the hourly chart, but shorts got drilled so badly by the rebound that they are likely to panic on Friday and squeeze the futures to new record highs.  If so, you should use the pattern shown to get a precise handle on this vehicle. The stall at day's end precisely at the 2473.25 midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance implies that the next upthrust will hit 2489.50 exactly.  Either the green line or the red one can be used, possibly by night owls, to set up a 'mechanical' buy, provided you are familiar with the tactic.

AMZN hit a bull market target Thursday that had been 17 months in coming and then plunged $82, suggesting it may have made an important top.  The high occurred to-the-exact-penny at a 1083.31 Hidden Pivot resistance that I began drum-rolling in early June when the stock was trading for less than $1000. I put a great deal of emphasis on this forecast because if AMZN was headed toward an important top, so was the stock market. We shall see. But the top was corroborated by another that I had projected in DIA, an equity-based vehicle designed to track the Dow Industrials. It topped Thursday at 217.75. Although that's a new all-time high, it is not sufficiently above the 217.45 target I'd projected to consider the target decisively breached.  How will Thursday's dramatic divergence between the Dow and the Nasdaq/SPY be resolved? My gut feeling is that bulls will win this one. Even so, I'll be watching AMZN in particular very closely, since the broad averages are not going to get very far without the stock's powerful leadership.

Once again, although we were unable to find a trade on which we could pull the trigger during this session, we did identify some promising set-ups. One of them involved a counterintuitive entry in August Gold that triggered later in the day. Check it out, then call up an hourly chart to see how this one actually played out.

AMZN and the broad averages were in bullish gear Wednesday, wafting into the ozone as usual. Even so, I've detailed a trade in DIA designed to leverage a precise Hidden Pivot resistance that lies not far above these levels. This is a low-risk speculation using put options, so check it out if you've been itching to fade the trend.

August Gold encouraged with an end-of-day reversal that tripped a 'counterintuitive' buy signal at 1249.30 (see inset). We anticipated this during this morning's tutorial session, which you can access in recorded form if you were registered for the class but unable to attend. In after-hours trading the futures looked like an easy bet to reach the 1267.60 target shown, but we should expect buyers to do a little better than that if this rally is going to get legs._______ UPDATE (Jul 27, 5:33 p.m. EDT): Yes, I'm wondering like you why buyers are having such trouble pushing this brick just a few more inches to my target. It is not exactly a sign of good health that they failed to so on Thursday. Actually, gold is at a very crucial threshold where it is likely either to fly or die in the weeks ahead. For my detailed comments on this, click here for an interview I did Thursday morning with Cory Fleck of The Korelin Report. _______ UPDATE (Jul 28, 12:40 p.m.): Hip-hip hooray, sort of.  Gold punched through 1267.60, topping so far at 1269.80. That's not enough of an overshoot to celebrate, but it sure as heck isn't a negative. Traders can use the 1268.50 look-to-the-left peak recorded on 6/14 to set up a camouflage entry. On the 15-minute chart, the subtlest imaginable point 'A' lies at 1264.60 (today, 1:00 a.m.).

In the good old days, institutional players used to rotate money from one sector to another just so that no one suspected them of having one-track minds. The process took place over weeks or even months, but these days the whole dog-and-pony show can begin and end in mere hours. Tuesday morning, for instance, the Big Money was flowing out of AMZN and into the Dow, suggesting that there was money burning a hole in DaBoyz' pockets that had to go somewhere. By day's end, however, it looked like all the 'rotating' they'd needed to do was finished. AMZN resumed its inexorable trek higher, and the Dow, despite considerable drag early in the session from the retail giant's recalcitrant shares, closed up a hundred points. Are these guys good, or what?