Rick Ackerman

The futures would become a very enticing 'mechanical' buy, stop 2412.25, on a pullback to the green line at 2429.25. You can use the signal to craft a camouflage entry that would reduce the initial risk by as much as 90%, but I'm more interested in how this set-up plays out. The overall look of the pattern suggests it is a very good bet to reach the 'D' target at 2456.00. If not, and the September contract falls beneath 2412.50 first, we could infer that serious weakness may be about to  emerge._______ UPDATE (Jun 21, 4:58 p.m. EDT): The futures tripped the mechanical buy signal in the manner described above, but we'll remain on the sidelines and simply observe what happens next. A fall below 2412.50 would imply that trouble is brewing. _______ UPDATE (June 25, 6:30 p.m.): Zzzzzzzzz. No change in the analysis given above. 

/vimeo.com">Vimeo. Once again, we stalked AMZN to prove that it’s possible to get comfortable scalp-trading a thousand-dollar stock. This will necessarily entail using ‘mechanical’ bids on the very lesser charts, but this should present no particular problems for anyone who has attempted longer-term trades using the same tactic.

There are several actionable trades in today's list of touts, including one that goes against AMZN's seemingly unstoppable uptrend. Although shorting the stock is always going to be tricky, for those of you who want to keep it simple I've detailed a longshot play in the chat room (at 23:50) that can be initiated with a simple limit bid for put options. It could turn out to be the fastest $260 you've ever lost, but that is the risk of what Rick's Picks subscribers have come to call the 'Friday jackpot bet'. We ceased doing them a while back because 'everyone' seemed to be betting stocks would go crazy on Friday.  They didn't, and that's one of the reasons VIX is in record-low territory. Could the pattern of boring Fridays be about to change? We could find out soon. _______ UPDATE (9:52 a.m.): So much for that theory. This is already shaping up to be one of the more boring Fridays we've seen in recent months....years. For the record, the trade in AMZN did not trigger and self-canceled a few minutes ago.

There are three alternative rally targets in addition to the one I've selected at 217.21, but price action at the p midpoint pivot persuaded me I've got it right. There is not much of a spread between the lowest and highest possibilities, so the choice of targets won't make too much difference in our game plan. Still, if our plan is to get short by buying puts at 217.21, we may as well try to do so without experiencing pain or stress.  For now, however, use p2=213.82 to get long 'mechanically', provided you know how it's done. If not, query me or any other Pivoteer in the chat room for guidance in real time. Making a few bucks enroute to the rally target will allow us to widen the stop-loss if and when we attempt to get short.  Eight put options at the 217 strike, with 2-3 weeks left on them, is what I've got in mind.________UPDATE (Jun 21, 5:07 p.m.): DIA  pulled back to p2 too quickly to set up a proper 'mechanical' buy. We'll put it aside for now and simply look to get short if the 217.21 target is closely approached.  The weakness of the past two days would become technically significant if DIA were to fall below 212.75. That would generate a bearish impulse leg on the hourly chart for the first time since mid-May.

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It's getting harder each day to imagine what could slow the bull's ascent. Last week's mini tech-crash evinced a few hours' worth of contrition but no real fear. The stocks that got hit hardest, most particularly Amazon, wasted little time getting back in bullish gear. Elsewhere on the page, I've advised staking out a long position in DIA using a 'mechanical' bid. As usual, this gambit is purposed on racking up some profits on the long side so that we can short more comfortably if and when the rally reaches a promising-looking target. See my DIA tout for details.

The futures crushed a 1245.90 Hidden Pivot support on the hourly chart, implying there is more punishment in store for bulls. If so, a test of support near the May 9 low at 1220 seems likely. It is a more compelling downside target than any Hidden Pivot support I could offer you at the moment. If a low-risk buying opportunity looms, it will likely be by way of a 'counterintuitive' signal generated by a bounce off a low near 1220. We'll monitor August Gold's vital signs closely in any case, but it would take a rally exceeding 1268.50 to suggest bulls are turning things around

AMZN rallied 49 points off Thursday's low, peaking a too-coy 25 cents shy of $1000. My gut feeling is that DaBoyz have been a little too ambitious in trying to recoup  the June 9 tech avalanche so quickly. If AMZN runs out of steam as I expect, look for the broad averages to struggle for at least the next couple of days.  Index futures were up the equivalent of 50 Dow points Sunday night, but this looks more like distribution to me than enthused buying.

The futures have been screwing the pooch for two weeks, presumably to gather what modest thrust is required to reach the 2456.00 target shown.  The broad averages have been entirely opportunistic of news, often in a perverse way. Recall that the most powerful rally of the last month was a short squeeze following a decline caused by a particularly negative stretch of stories concerning Trump. They were the usual, made-up claptrap from the media hacks who gin up the headlines, but it gave DaBoyz a perfect excuse to pull their bids for a couple of days so that stocks could plummet quickly to relative bargain levels. With sellers exhausted, it has been easy since to keep stocks wafting higher. Now, with AMZN leading the way, the so-far two-week consolidation in the broad averages seems likely to end early this week. Even so, we'll be watching AMZN closely, particularly at Hidden Pivot resistance points, to greatly reduce the odds of being fooled at a potentially important turning point._________ UPDATE (Jun 19, 7:34 p.m.): No change. Monday's rally brought the futures to within 4.50 points of the 2456.00 target, which remains valid. An easy move past it would imply more upside over the near term to as high as 2480.25, a Hidden Pivot resistance derived from the same pattern.