Rick Ackerman

The dollar and index futures were trading higher early Tuesday morning -- no surprise there -- but so are gold futures! What a crazy world!  I've tried to make sense of it in today's tout for Comex August futures, but the bottom line is that the rally must strengthen in order to trip the hourly chart bullish. For further details, including specific price targets, check out the gold tout for today.

Ahhh! Now we know why NFLX traders have been wetting their pants with excitement over this stock lately! An article in Monday's Wall Street Journal described how the company is slowly gaining a foothold in Hollywood, bankrolling "content" and finding new ways to stream and distribute it.  On the strength of this highly speculative turnaround story, Wall Street's criminally inept stewards of OPM have spared no excess in bidding Netflix shares into the ionosphere.  One might think the company had discovered, if not a cure for cancer, then a fabulous new way to produce hit shows effortlessly and with little money at risk. In fact, Netflix has a long way to go before it can wheel and deal its way to the kind of revenues the company earned when home-delivered DVDs were the best idea since sliced bread. Technically speaking, the stock's latest wilding spree was telegraphed by the failure of the last correction to reach an obvious and ostensibly important trendline (see inset). Now the stock appears bound for a minimum 239.87, the Hidden Pivot target of the minor pattern at the right-hand edge of the chart. Camouflageurs may find a good opportunity to position themselves for the move, since the stock has stalled at the 233.86 midpoint pivot.  I'd suggest looking for your entry spot near these levels by using impulse legs on the 5-minute chart or less.  You can learn to do this stuff yourself. Click here.  _______ UPDATE (9:43 a.m. EDT):  Su-prize, su-prize:  The launch phase of today's obligatory short squeeze hit 239.39, and now a second, lunatic leg up is bound for perhaps 244.47. There was little chance for bulls to play this move until the second phase of it was underway, 1-minute: A=232.87, B=239.39, B=238.18, for X=239.81 (and p=241.44). ______ UPDATE (July 9, 10:14

Most unusual: Gold , index futures AND the U.S. dollar were all trading moderately higher early Monday morning. Are traders perhaps unclear on the concept (whatever it might be)?  In any event, it's a good time to look at gold's chart in isolation from the seemingly anomalous. Accordingly, and mechanically speaking, the August contract wants to ascend to at least 1264.10 (or perhaps to 1266.30, based on a slightly lower 'A') over the very near-term. Notice how buyers pushed it well past the 'p' midpoint within the last few minutes. That make a follow-through to the target all but certain. It would also leave the futures well shy of the 1301.80 print required to generate a no-doubt-about-it bullish impulse leg on the hourly chart. Still, higher is better than lower, and it will at least earn bulls the benefit of the doubt, assuming price can hold aloft overnight and into the start of the regular session. _______ UPDATE (11:40 a.m. EDT): The point 'C' low of the rally pattern has been violated, negating the target. More significant is that the top of today's rally failed, in chicken-hearted fashion, to take out last Wednesday's 1259.30 peak. It did take out a slightly lower peak a couple of bars to the right of it, but the pullback that followed couldn't even generate a profitable 'camo' trade of leastmost degree. This feeble action has bearish implications for the moment, although it's nothing that a thrust exceeding 1279.00 couldn't cure. A print at 1279.10 would generate a bullish impulse leg on the 30-minute chart. _______ UPDATE (July 10, 11:45 a.m.): Today's upthrust has put August Gold back on track for a run-up to at least 1287.90. The move is not only bullishly impulsive on the hourly chart, it appears to have converted the 1247.40

August Gold has been up as much as $17 Sunday night, but you should check out the chart accompanying today's tout to see what it would take to turn the rally into something more than a flash-in-the-pan.

Today's commentary referenced the 15649 target shown.  What I did not mention is the reason why a rally to this number looks like an odds-on bet. Notice that Friday's upthrust (the rightmost bar on the chart) ended with the Dow sitting just above the red line, a midpoint resistance. The overshoot is slight, but even slight progress today would make a follow-through to 'D' all but a lock-up.

The ostensibly bearish pattern shown never even got close to the midpoint support during recent sessions, implying that bulls will be ready to romp as the new week begins.  The uptrending ABC pattern at the right-hand side of the chart has already triggered a buy signal, but the pattern has little value predictively because its 'D' target coincides with mid-June's highs. Camouflageurs may be able to leverage a 1635.50 peak made June 19 on the way down, but it'll require zooming in on a sub-hourly chart to make the peak display properly.

Although I try to keep subscribers on top of encouraging signs in gold, there's little value in my trying to sugarcoat the technical evidence at hand. To be as straightforward as I can right now, that means acknowledging that August Gold's bounce from the June 28 low at 1179 has not been nearly strong enough to suggest that a major bear market has ended.  More immediately, and from a purely technical standpoint, the weakness of the last few sessions has transformed a promising, bullish impulse leg into a duel between bulls and bears.  To be sure, the larger of the conflicting patterns is intact and still bullish. But as of early Monday morning, the smaller one dictates trading from the short side if scalping.  The chart (see inset) shows what would need to happen for bulls to regain the upper hand -- i.e., a price reversal from p or above that rallies above the red 'A' without pausing for breath.  However, it would take significantly more than that -- specifically, an uncorrected thrust to 1301.80 on the hourly chart, to refresh the bullish energy of the three-day rally we saw from 1179.

Just ahead of the Fourth of July holiday, the markets were even more squirrelly than usual. This proved especially challenging, since a few of the camouflage opportunities we considered came and went in the blink of an eye. Our solution was to use some old tactics, including bottom-fishing the ‘D’ correction targets of patterns that looked like they would work perfectly. For a close look at them on the 15-second bar chart, have a look at this recording, since it contains some excellent specimens.

The markets are scheduled to re-open on Friday, however that goes, but the next touts and commentary will not be out until Sunday evening.  Have a great Fourth!