Rick Ackerman

I've adjusted our rally target slightly upward to 3069.00, a high-odds turning point that you can short provided you've made at least $600 on the way up. The 'mechanical' buy I'd noted here yesterday is currently profitable to the tune of about $3300 per contract, but I did not recommend it because it came off a 'sloppy seconds' signal. Anyone who took the trade would have suffered an adverse swing of about $1000 per contract before it came home, although the 'mechanical' setup ultimately worked as such trades are supposed to when stocks swoon violently.  As always, an easy move past so clear a Hidden Pivot resistance as 3069.00 would imply the uptrend is likely to continue. ______ UPDATE (May 28, 7:04 p.m. EDT): The intraday high occurred two ticks off the original target, 3065.50, but it was close enough for some Trading Room denizens to make hay. Here's a report from one of them, MattB, a regular at the Wednesday morning tutorial sessions: "Rick, sorry, but I missed the [E-Mini Nasdaq] trade. I was busy using your tricks in [the E-Mini S&Ps]. Paid for the next few years' subscriptions with two contracts in 23 minutes."  We should know soon if the target caught an important high ahead of the weekend.

Bears eager to get short near the top of the stock market's inexplicable rampage could have just one chance left before shares blast off for infinity and beyond. This is the clear implication of the chart included with my latest forecast for the Nasdaq 100 (see below). On Tuesday the E-Mini Nasdaq futures peaked almost precisely at a long-term Hidden Pivot resistance located in a place that has been known to show magical stopping power. The futures sold off more than 4o0 points after touching it, but they recouped more than half of it Wednesday, showing no sign of fatigue at the bell. The 9604 high could conceivably mark the end of the vertical rally since March 23. However, if the June contract closes above the 9585  pivot for two consecutive bars on the weekly chart, that would make a run-up to 10,571 an odds-on bet. That is a little more than 9% above the all-time high at  9763 recorded in February, and it would make this spring's sensational running of the bulls even more inexplicable and frightening. Although health officials are cautiously optimistic about a vaccine, Wall Street is quite obviously wildly optimistic. ______ UPDATE (May 28, 6:37 p.m. EDT): Subscribers in the Trading Room around mid-day could have jumped on a short I detailed explicitly in the E-Mini Nasdaq futures (see chart above). Check out my posts on this beginning at 12:26 p.m. if you want to determine whether you could have pulled the trigger. It occurred 21 points off the intraday high, just ahead of a 147-point plunge worth as much as $588 per contract. By the close, 75% of the initial position had been covered, with one contract remaining for a  swing at the fences. That was the purpose of this gambit, as the headline stated.

I sometimes joke that virtually every trading vehicle, in every time frame, whether trending up or down, reverses from p2, the secondary pivot, virtually every time. Or so it would seem. I was never really a p2 kind of guy, but my mentor, Ira Tunik, used it so often, and persuaded so many Rick's Picks subscribers that it was important, that I eventually started to pay attention. That's when I began to see that it actually does repel trends almost as consistently as my beloved 'p' midpoint Hidden Pivot. It has also become clearer recently that some of the most successful traders in the room have been using p2 to set up rABC trades that deliver as consistently as a loose slot machine in a Reno bust-out joint. All of which is intended to call attention to the chart shown in the inset, a weekly graph of the E-Mini Nasdaq futures. This lunatic-powered vehicle comprises an invincible core of no-decision stocks that institutional holders would never even consider selling. That is why it is spitting fire at the moment, just inches from record highs. Notice as well that Wednesday's peak, which put a new high on the bounce from March's Mindanao abyss, occurred almost precisely at p2=9585. I wouldn't want to put ideas in your head, but there are worse places to attempt getting short.  Just sayin'. We can use puts in $NDX, so stay tuned to the chat room for timely ideas -- or make sure you've enabled 'Updates' on your account page. The caveat here is that buyers shredded the 8600.00 midpoint pivot the first time they encountered it on the way up. This made it likely that D=10,571 will be reached. As you can see, it sits well above the current record high at  9763.00.  I can't

Using just two or three of our Hidden Pivot entry tactics in various time frames creates more intraday opportunities than we are able to exploit. This session provided good evidence of this as we looked to force trades in several popular vehicles. We’ve done this before, but with some new refinements, particularly in the way we use rABC setups, it’s possible to find good trading opportunities all day long, even when picking trading vehicles at random.

All heaven broke loose ahead of Tuesday's opening, starting with a gusher of headlines suggesting the worst is behind us. The Wall Street Journal led with a story about how trucking activity has picked up, and even the hotels and cruise lines are stirring. The pick-up in tempo is slight so far, as the Journal was forced to concede, but sufficient nonetheless for the editors to stuff a hat trick's worth of subliminally bullish data into stories played above the fold.  Elsewhere on the page, in the wrap-up briefs, it was alleged that air travel is creeping back to life, although almost no one you or I know is even thinking about flying for the next few months. Rounding out the Journal's v-shaped-recovery lollapalooza was an item about mortgage activity picking up, although there was no mention that most of it involves re-fi's. Such is the news in a time of cholera, and in fairness to the Journal, its rosy perception of the things is merely following the lunatic trajectory of the stock market.  Rick's Picks remains very bullish in nearly any event, despite all the fake news and 're-opening hubris'. We've been forecasting a nearly 2000-point rally in the Dow, albeit with one foot on the fire escape.  Short-covering will remain the name of the game for the time being, turbocharged by Fed purchases of corporate bonds as well as Treasury paper held by companies with surplus cash.    

A recent newspaper article about superspreaders -- stadium events, concerts and outdoor festivals that effectively bathe crowds in Covid-19 -- noted that a boisterous fan can spew viral particles that remain airborne for as long as 12 minutes.  There's additional evidence that when we steep in this microscopic spume for a couple of hours, as occurs when crowds are densely seated, it increases the 'dosage' of the virus and therefore its ability to do harm. This is scary stuff, especially since no one really knows how we're going to deal with it. And yet, in the same newspaper, on the same day, we read that concert promoters expect to be back in business in 2021, that airlines foresee a resurgence next year, and so do the cruise lines. Say what?  Do they perhaps know something that you and I do not regarding the imminent availability of a miracle vaccine? Or are they absurdly optimistic simply because they have chosen to believe a different set of facts, however illogical? The mainstream media has done its part making it easier to be more upbeat on reopenings than the blog world that you are in at this moment, gushing content without attempting to make coherent sense of it. Why ruin an upbeat story with depressing facts, especially if you are beholden to advertisers for your survival? A local newspaper, the South Florida Sun Sentinel, offered a holiday-weekend entertainment section on Friday that listed myriad activities and events certain to attract an audience that will have endured its limit of cabin fever.  A local night club owner who advertises heavily in print media took the opportunity to do a little PR for the club, which features live jazz, blues, salsa, blues and a well-worn dance floor. “I’ve seen some places that could care less

Friday's agitated price action was telegraphed at 3:00 a.m. overnight, when the futures meandered aimlessly below a clear Hidden Pivot support at around 3:00 a.m.  This somewhat altered our immediate outlook without significantly affecting its bullishness. Keep the aging, 3153.25 target in the back of your mind as the futures work their way higher, but use the 2984.50 midpoint resistance of the pattern shown as a minimum upside objective for the near term. It will be an enticing spot to squeeze off a short, but not unless you've made at few bucks on the way to it.  A drop of as much as 50 points on Monday would change nothing. _______ UPDATE (May 26, 7:53 a.m.): It took the swarm of locusts 18 hours to munch through 2984.50; now the immediate objective is 3024.88 (see inset), and thence the pattern's D target, 3065.25.  _______ UPDATE (8:59 p.m.): A meaningless selloff late in the day triggered a 'mechanical' buy signal at p=2984.50, stop 2957.50, but I didn't recommend the trade because of its poor timing -- i.e., at the closing bell. We'll take another look if the futures come down to x=2944.13, the green line.

The impressive rally that began the week went nowhere, leaving the futures about where they were in early April. They triggered a weak 'mechanical' buy signal at 1718.10 (the green line shown in the chart) on Thursday at the closing bell, but I did not explicitly recommend the trade ahead of the three-day holiday weekend. It implies minimum upside to p=1770.10 over the near term, but we'll hang back on a possible belated entry until we've seen how things open Monday night. The 1713.90 'D' target/support shown in this chart would be a good place to attempt tightly-stopped bottom fishing if it were to occur overnight or early in Tuesday's session. _______ UPDATE (May 26, 11:06 a.m. EDT): Gold is once again on its knees, too tired to do battle with a rampaging stock market.  The Hidden Pivot at 1713.90 noted above yielded a $4 bounce that lasted all of seven minutes -- too feeble for any profit taking other than by the nimblest traders. _______ UPDATE (May 26, 9:08 p.m.): Gold has turned to dross yet again, unable to compete against a stock market that has gone loco. You could attempt bottom-fishing near 1680 provided  you know your rABCs, but otherwise I'd suggest spectating as the  futures fall to as low as 1652.40 over the near term. Here's the chart.

The stock spent the entire week tap-dancing on a midpoint Hidden Pivot at 316.89. The frolicsome behavior suggests there's a strong likelihood AAPL will ascend to the corresponding target at 333.58 when the opportunity is right. DaBoyz seem in no great hurry to get there and were reluctant to push AAPL out onto a limb without corresponding strength in the broad averages. A dip to x=308.55, the green line, would trigger a strong 'mechanical' buy, but such weakness appeared unlikely when last week drew to a close.  As the stock continues to ascend, we can use p or even p2 to set up a 'mechanical' entry, but we'll let the perfect opportunity arise rather than force trades. _______ UPDATE (May 26, 9:17 p.m. EDT): Check out the 'mechanical' trade I put out around noon in both chat rooms, since the tactics are similar to those you may be seeing here in lower-priced vehicles from time to time.  They are geared to beginners, with the goal of making money for new subscribers in particular who may never have attempted a do-it-yourself day-trade before.  The stock went on to trigger a 'sloppy seconds' mechanical entry in the same place at the end of the day, but the opportunity wasn't quite up to snuff.  The next bottom-fishing opportunity would come about four points below, but I'd prefer to see it unfold in real time rather than try to detail an entry strategy the night before. _______ UPDATE (May 28, 10:13 p.m. EDT): Even with the world's most cocksure money behind it, AAPL has been struggling for oxygen during the last two weeks as it probes supply at the lofty heights of a mighty reverse head-and-shoulders pattern. The 333.58 target remains in play, a benchmark to modestly extend the bullish imagination rather than a