Rick Ackerman

A recommendation to buy GBTC 'mechanically' that was sent out Wednesday night caught the week's low and enabled subscribers who acted on my advice to reap a same-day gain of as much as 31%.  The stock (an ETF, actually) popped to 21.50 Thursday after tripping the entry signal at 19.66. Based on my last update, you should still be holding as much as 50% of the original position for a possible ride over the next 2-3 weeks to as high as D=25.85. I'd use a break-even stop in the meantime, since this vehicle can be nasty when a trend becomes too popular. ______ UPDATE (Dec 15, 3:19 p.m.): Offer another 25% of the original position at p2=23.73. If filled, that would leave subscribers who followed my guidance with a hundred shares (or 25% of the original position) whose profit-adjusted cost basis is $9.33. ______ UPDATE (Dec 16, 8:49 p.m.): Officially, we exited the remainder of the position at 25.85, just off the intraday high. The theoretical gain on this trade would have been $1652. If you still hold part of the position and are playing for a moonshot, use 31.66 as a target. GBTC looks like a very good bet to get there. Also, stay tuned, since it may be possible to re-board this vehicle using a 'mechanical' set-up on the daily chart.  The stop-loss would be around $3.50 wide. _______ UPDATE (Dec 17, 9:55 p.m.): Stupid but entirely predictable, the moonshot advertised in my last update happened in a single day, generating a 30.92 high before demand evaporated. That sent GBTC plummeting nearly $4, but rest assured bulls will be back, since a clear Hidden Pivot resistance on the weekly chart was exceeded by a mile. One of my coordinates on the intraday chart was slightly off, but when

The futures have dipped slightly below the green line at 1830.60, quietly signaling a drop to at least 1781.40, a midpoint Hidden Pivot support shown in the chart. Bears have not exactly romped since gold topped in August at 2099, but they have dominated the action, often to devastating effect on those occasional days when conditions were right for a takedown.  The longer-term charts are unambiguously bullish, but it would appear bullion has been biding its time, presumably waiting for a signal change in the Big Picture. It is remarkable that bitcoin has usurped gold's historical role as a hedge against inflation. This anomaly seems unlikely to last, but for the time being bullion's loyal supporters will have to  get used to seeing it underperform cryptocurrency that is intrinsically valueless. ______ UPDATE (Dec 15, 8:32 a.m.): Here's a new chart that corrects the erroneous 'B' low in the original along with its downside targets. The result lowers p and D by around $5 to, respectively, 1776.80 and 1673.7.  This does NOT mean I am more bearish. In fact, other than on rigged 'takedown' days, bears seem to be struggling for every inch. Moreover, if today's so-far gratuitous rally gets rolling and exceeds 1879.80, that would invalidate the new targets. A further push exceeding 1902.40 would generate the first impulse leg we've seen on the daily chart in ages. _______ UPDATE (Dec 17, 1:22 p.m.): This morning's strong rally missed creating the impulse leg we'd wanted (see above) by five ticks.  Bulls would seem to have the gumption to get it done, but with gold, it will always be a matter of 'trust but verify'. Proof therefore awaits.

Ho-hum. The futures have been plodding toward a 3740.75 target since late September, pausing for nearly two weeks in October in order to scare the hell out of anyone who briefly may have lost faith in the Fed's ability to control...everything. I've commented in the chat room on the pattern shown in the chart, although the target has been revised slightly. My point 'A' low is not as well developed as I would prefer, but its June 25 date corresponds to one in the December chart that is a picture-perfect. A pullback to the red line would be read by most market-watchers as a possible disaster in the making, but my perspective is that it would offer a pretty good 'mechanical' buying opportunity with a stop-loss at 3373.75. _______ UPDATE (Dec 14, 8:47 p.m. EST): I hadn't noticed the subtle point 'A' low in this chart, but the fact that it exists, however ineffably, suggests we should be on our guard now that the rally has topped at the target. _______ UPDATE (Dec 16, 9:04 p.m.): Here's a pattern I posted in the chat room at the start of the day with a 3843.50 target that leaves some room if, as appears likely, the futures continue higher.

The cubes came within inches of a 312.29 target we've been using for months to keep us agreeably on the right side of the trend.  Subscribers who got short near the actual high  at 308.60 should take a partial profit on half of it and hold the remainder for a swing at the fences. We hold no official position because the gap between the actual high at 308.60 and the target was too large. It's too early to tell whether the downturn will get legs, but usually it is a bearish sign when a target as narrowly missed as this one gives way to a nasty countertrend leg of 3% or more. That would be about twice what we've seen so far.  ______ UPDATE (Dec 15, 5:26 p.m. EST):  Let's try to get short at a potential major top, bidding 0.16 for eight Feb 19 240/250/260 put butterfly spreads. Stay tuned, since I may adjust the price or strategy as the Cubes approach the 312.29 target.  _______ UPDATE (Dec 17, 10:11 p.m.): We're getting close, since the midpoint of the spread as quoted is 0.18. If the butterfly remains just out of reach, or if you'd like to try something different, try bidding 0.68 for eight Feb 19 260/250 put spreads. This would give us the first leg of the butterfly if QQQ subsequently drops. If we were then to short eight 250/240 put spreads, we could conceivably put on the 'fly for pennies or even a credit.

The bull cycle begun six weeks ago from 261.41 came with 0.47 points last week of our 304.07 target, implying that a potentially important top is at hand. We  could find out soon, but if the Dow should turn higher this week after so shallow a correction, it would imply immediate upside to at least 308.23, and thence to 327.27 if any higher.  The pattern yielding those Hidden Pivot resistances is shown here.  I had suggested getting short if 304.07 was touched or closely approached, but there was not enough of a response in the chat room to justify my establishing a tracking position. _______ UPDATE (Dec 15, 5:40 p.m.): Let's try to leg into a bearish, vertical put spread, first by bidding 0.80 for four Feb 19 250 puts, good through Friday. This is well below Monday's closing price, but it is 0.05 above a 0.75 downside  target I've projected using a Hidden Pivot pattern.

Here was a reassuring headline last week from Forbes online:  Airbnb’s Higher Valuation Is Reasonable.  What a relief! We can always count on the financial news media to provide a list of reasons why a stock is not overvalued no matter what its price. The trouble is, the story appeared before ABNB went public last Thursday. The IPO had been pegged at $56-$60 per share, amounting to a valuation of around $35 billion. However, when the stock actually began to trade, it opened at $146 and rose in minutes to $165. That’s a valuation of more than $100 billion – not bad for a business that has been drowning in red ink since the pandemic hit last spring and which even before then was challenged to bring any revenues down to the bottom line. “The new valuation,” continued Forbes, referring to the $60/share benchmark, “changes nothing about the firm’s business but increases the execution risk of management achieving the expectations baked into the stock.” Ahhh, "execution risk"! That's a quaint old term used mainly to downplay the possibility that a company might not be able to live up to shareholders’ greediest expectations. In the case of ABNB, it would seem that investors are looking many years ahead, to a time when the pandemic is recalled with nostalgia, and when residential neighborhoods have become so densely packed with wayfarers that local restaurants and hostelries will have to turn away business. Not Doing the Math The recent IPO of Door Dash, the eternally profitless meal-delivery service, looks even worse than ABNB’s. The seven-year-old startup lost $667 million in 2019 and another $149 million through October of this year. And yet, when DASH’s shares began to trade last Wednesday, they achieved an 85% mark-up above their IPO price instantly, equating to a market

The ascent toward a 12,741 target [please note that this has been corrected to correspond to the chart] has been a tortuous, ten-week slog ever since the futures tripped a theoretical buy signal eleven weeks ago at 11172. We've had a couple of 'mechanical' winners along the way, but last week's high just shy of the target suggests the pattern's usefulness is spent. The actual high at 12677 missed by 64 points, or 0.5%, and although the target is still valid in theory, its only practical value for us now is that a decisive breach would suggest buyers have sufficient energy for a further push into new-record territory. Most immediately, we should be especially cautious, since it's conceivable that an important top is in.

After watching 50 hours of Giuliani hearings, here is my connect-the-dots summary: The plot to steal the election was brilliant, elegant and well-financed, probably by Soros. It required only a relative handful of precincts and mid-to-high-level planners to succeed – as few as 30 people in all, including foot soldiers. The fixers trained their efforts on just a half-dozen counties – all the precincts needed  to swing a close election or solidify a Biden win. Parallel, massive fraud took place in most states as well, but it was not centrally planned or directed. Think ‘jihadi cells’ acting on their own. Evidence of the latter is overwhelming, blatant and largely provable, but it is just a smokescreen. So far, the smokescreen has worked in both a legal and PR sense: It provided instances of fraudl so numerous that it made legal charges of overarching scandal difficult to prove, hard to encapsulate in court filings and easy to ridicule. Dominion (i.e., Soros) played a key role they will not be able to deny. Their reps were on hand 24/7 in the key precincts, and they were observed and photographed by workers whose suspicions had been aroused. (Very solid evidence has left Dominion dead-to-rights regardless of what the New York Piece of Shit Times says.) The plan would have succeeded but for one factor that was wholly unanticipated: a Trump landslide. This forced late-hour vote-dumps so large that they were bound to be detected. The smoking-gun video produced in yesterday’s GA hearing is sufficient alone to push legislators in the contested states to do the right thing. Although decertifying elections in their respective states will be the most difficult choice they have ever faced, few of them will want to be held responsible for putting their stamp of approval on an election that stinks to high

The yellow flag is out now that the obsessively owned Russell 2000 Index has topped 14 cents from a long-term Hidden Pivot target.  IWM, an ETF proxy for the small-cap-heavy Russell index, has rolled down from 192.81, slightly beneath a 192.95 Hidden Pivot resistance I'd drum-rolled in the Rick's Picks chat room Wednesday morning and on Facebook and YouTube a day earlier. Some subscribers were able to leverage the potentially important high by buying Jan 22 140/150/160 put butterfly spreads for around 0.20 as advised. Please report any fills in the chat room, but don't chase the trade. IWM plunged nearly $5.00 after coming within pennies of the target. Although it rebounded modestly toward the end of the session, the burden of proof will remain on bulls until such time as IWM closes above 192.95 for two consecutive days. We will try to get short again if this happens, since there is another target between current levels and 200 that looks capable of delivering another enticing longshot bet. I'd characterized the trade as speculative but still worth a look. We are getting theoretical odds of 50-to-1 against a collapse in the Russell index by late January, and the most we can lose is around $20 per butterfly. Theoretical upside potential is $1000, although in practice exiting for $700 or so would be a pretty good trick. Note that that would still be getting 35-to-one -- not bad in a market as vulnerable as this one. Chimp Geniuses We have focused increasingly on the Russell idex in recent months because it has turned white-hot. The heat was applied by chimp geniuses paid absurd sums to throw Other People's Money at a handful of stocks they've all agreed on. They realized one morning that they were immersed in insanely overvalued mega-cap 'lunatic