Rick Ackerman

Portfolio managers' most beloved stock, the 600-pound gorilla of publicly traded companies, met all of our upside objectives last week save one: a thrust to new all-time highs. We'd been looking to short the stock when it approached this threshold -- the 'nifty trick' I'd referred to in the Trading Room. Alas, last week's high at 319.69 fell somewhat shy of January's 327.85 record. AAPL ended the week with two straight days of egregious manipulation by the usual sleazeballs. Specifically, they opened the stock well beneath the previous day's close in order to dry up sellers. This set up a flurry of short-covering on both days, but neither exceeded the previous day's highs. This smacks of distribution, and although it doesn't necessarily portend a collapse in the stock in the days ahead, it does tell us that the aforesaid scumballs were having difficulty rounding up enough suckers to float this hoax to any impressive new height. We'll watch from the sidelines until it becomes apparent whether a new herd of clapping seals is waiting to do the bidding of AAPL's canny masters. ______ UPDATE (May 18, 10:01 p.m. EDT): Perhaps we'll get a chance to short a return to the old highs after all -- not because we'll be trying to nail The Top, but because we can make money regardless of what it does, especially in spots where others fear to  tread. All you newbies watch closely, because, as I promised, this is going to be a nifty little trick.

Thursday's dip got bought so ferociously that bears will think twice about getting in the way again, at least for a day or two. That was the purpose of the rally, even if there were no conspirators promoting it, just bears terrorizing themselves.  There was no news to have caused the explosive move other than the usual grim headlines. Another week has gone by with no change in anyone's outlook. Mnuchin and Kudlow still believe the U.S. economy will be going gangbusters sooner than we think, but no one believes them. An effective vaccine is three months off -- or two years at best, if ever, depending on which supposed expert you're listening to. The inevitable, ugly political war is over how quickly things should reopen. Fox viewers say it's time to return to business, while CNN/MSNBC's audience wants to keep things locked down more or less forever. Conservatives will win this one because everyone is going crazy sheltering at home. And for what? All the pain has done nothing to eradicate the virus, only to slow it down as long as we don't venture out into the world. How long can that last? It will be a miracle if even the reopenings that have occurred so far do not kick up the death tolls and 'positives'. We've all become expert enough about the pandemic to know that the experts themselves don't know a heckuva lot more than we do about how the nation should proceed.

A 228.44 downside target I'd sent out the night before caught Thursday's V-shaped low precisely. I'd proffered trading instructions as well, enabling some subscribers to buy call options at the exact bottom of an 846-point Dow rally.  Those who reported getting aboard in the Rick's Picks Trading Room used different strategies, so I did not establish a tracking position. However, using the 'rABC' entry tactic I'd explicitly advised could have produced a gain of as much as $34,000 on four round lots. Those who bought options instead would have doubled their money easily, although some of the expiring out-of-the-money calls traded for as much as seven times what they'd fetched in the early minutes of the session. I put DIA back on the touts list because some subscribers who follow the broad averages were keen to trade an equity-based vehicle rather than E-Mini S&P futures. The opportune timing of DIA's return to the list was not a coincidence. I had dropped it for a while because it went all boring on us, but brought it back in conjunction with bearish developments earlier in the week. If you are among those who said they wanted DIA back on the list, I'd suggest tuning to the chat room and monitoring my tout updates diligently to make the most of it. Speaking of which, DIA is bound for a minimum 237.59, whence you can expect a tradeable pullback. I am not putting out a trade a day in advance, however, since that Hidden Pivot resistance coincides with  a technically important peak at 237.50 that unfortunately will attract all the yo-yos. Here's the chart. ______ UPDATE (May 15, 8:39 a.m. EDT): Forget the chart, since index futures are down sharply ahead of the opening -- sufficiently so to take out the point 'C' low

As vexatious as the rally has been, it's time to adjust the 36.90 rally target we've been using upward with a new one at 38.61 (see inset). The pattern has produced just one 'mechanical' buying opportunity that occurred on a sharp pullback to 31.68  two weeks ago. But all retracements since have been too weak to generate a similar set-up.  I mentioned in the chat room that GDX trades almost as viciously as grain futures, and that's why we need to get long only with close adherence to Hidden Pivot rules intended to minimize risk. For that reason, I will leave open the trading of it to whatever opportunities develop intraday. This is a crowdsourced project, so don't be timid about contributing to the effort if you know your ABCs. ______ UPDATE (May 19, 8:36 p.m.): Yes, it's okay to buy a few soon-to-expire, out-of-the-money puts if GDX gets within 0.11 of the target. Don't risk more than you can lose painlessly. _______ UPDATE (May 21, 9:04 p.m.): What a huge surprise: GDX has plummeted without having quite reached a clear and compelling Hidden Pivot target. It remains viable in theory, but you know the drill: two steps up, 1.90 steps back. _______ UPDATE (May 24, 5:15 p.m.): If June Gold is trading minus $4 or higher, you can use the 35.08 midpoint Hidden Pivot shown in this chart to bottom-fish cautiously. Specifically, a 35.10 bid should be employed in conjunction with a 34.97 stop-loss. The order is good for the first hour only, and you should check here and in the chat room to make sure it hasn't been revised. _______UPDATE (May 26, 9:39 p.m.):  Bottom-fishing at 33.74 looks enticing, but it's unlikely to yield an easy winner because it's too close to some May 13 lows that the

Today's trampoline bounce obviously caught bears by surprise, but it would be premature for them to give up. The chart shows that all of the ups and downs since April 30, including today's nasty short-squeeze, have occurred below a small but technically significant 'look-to-the-left' peak at 2975.00 recorded in early March. A key assumption of the Hidden Pivot Method is that to remain healthy, a bull trend must exceed a prior 'external' peak with each new upthrust. It didn't happened here, even if the shortfall relative to April 30's 2972.25 peak was just three points. That's enough to place the burden of proof on bulls at the moment, although I would caution against getting in their way too aggressively.  We should trade on Friday with no strong bias, but also no fear of shorting provided we do it by-the-book, 'camo'-style.

As always, one need only have focused solely on AAPL, the world's most important stock, to see that bears were not going to romp on Thursday. The stock tried three times in the early going to smash a Hidden Pivot support at 302.03 but finally gave up. Too weary to resist the dip-buying multitudes, bears allowed the stock to escape and romp into the close. Bulls are still not out of the woods, though, since they would need to exceed Wednesday's 315.94 peak to generate some heat. With the running start they got just ahead of the close, however, they'll have the benefit of the doubt as the week ends. The nearest Hidden Pivot above lies at 310.36, but it is not of the finest pedigree, so I am recommending shorting there only to Pivoteers who know their way around 'camouflage' entries.

Bull got pushed back on their heels for a change Wednesday, although sellers were unable to deliver a coup de grace in the final hour. The Dow Industrials ended the day with a 516-point loss nonetheless, unable to extract much yardage from short-covering. We've all been waiting for the other shoe to drop, but has it? It seems possible, since three weeks of noodling around failed to push the broad averages to targeted Hidden Pivot highs that weren't especially ambitious. AAPL, the world's most important stock, can usually help clarify the mood of portfolio managers, but its performance was mixed. The stock finished down about $3, well off the lows, and remained in the throes of a mild short squeeze just before midnight. If bears have anything going for them it will be the prospect of a weekend with little news to encourage.

For those of you who are just getting started as traders, thinking small can be the straightest path to big success. In this lesson you will see further evidence that it’s possible to force small, winning trades practically at will, all day long. Master the Hidden Pivot tricks you need to get to this point and the same tactics will work in size as your confidence grows.

Continuing yesterday's theme of how the stock market has completely decoupled from reality, we note that the shares of some publicly traded companies immersed in the home rental business have gone bonkers. A story on the front page of Tuesday's Wall Street Journal noted that "Investors are flocking to the U.S.'s mega-landlords, drawn by signs that companies that emerged from last decade's foreclosure crisis owning huge pools of rental houses are weathering the economic shutdown far better than feared." Oh really?  In the first place, these companies bought up whole blocks of homes, and even started building them as the trend gathered steam, near the top of the market. I learned about this first-hand from a friend who was sent by his employer to buy up every home he could find in the very-inflated Denver market. Although company had never before been involved in real estate, they got immersed in it up to their eyeballs in just two years, according to my friend. They Bought the Top Paying inflated prices will not be the worst of their problems as the economy sinks into a state of permanent recession-or-worse. Their tenants are mainly young families and couples unable to afford homes of their own, and it's likely they will have little saved to cushion themselves against very hard times. Concerning the notion that mega-landlords have weathered the pandemic better than expected, the optimists are jumping the gun, since we are less than two months into the downturn. Moreover, its effects have been muted so far by the $1,200 checks sent out to millions of Americans as part of a massive stimulus package. Anyone who received one of those checks would have recognized instantly that the goal of stimulating the economy was dead on arrival. No one went out and bought a