Rick Ackerman

Buyers had a coronary a millimeter above the 319.43 Hidden Pivot target shown in the chart. It had been three weeks in coming, and we should therefore expect this correction to take at least 3-4 days to run its course. It could turn out to be much worse than that, however -- perhaps even the dropping of the 'second shoe' that we have all dreaded.  If so, expect to see minor abc downtrends start breaching midpoint Hidden Pivot supports and exceeding their 'd' targets. The lesser charts will be a good place as always to assess the trend strength, and to temper our enthusiasm for bottom-fishing merely because we've become habituated to the stock market's nutty buying spree. As the downtrend starts to lengthen, assuming it does, we may be able to trade against the trend with risk under very tight control. Stay tuned. ______ UPDATE (May 13, 9:38 p.m. EDT): Sellers looked pretty feeble on day two of the downtrend, failing to achieve even the p midpoint support (301.79) of the first robust abc pattern (30-min, a=315.95 at 11:00 a.m.). Let's see if they can do better on Thursday, when they'll have a Friday finish line to coax them in the direction of the trend.

The futures sputtered out without achieving even the least ambitious of my bullish benchmarks. The targets remain valid in theory, but today's chart is intended to stretch the bearish imagination by emphasizing not Hidden Pivot levels, but a vast chasm below that taunts investors who may have whooped it up a little too heedlessly lately.  En route to the chasm, there are four technically significant lows stretching back to April 21's 2717.25, the most important of them. The others lie, respectively, at  2823.00 (5/6); 2771.00 (5/3); and 2755.25 (4/24). Every one of them is guaranteed to evince a flutter, bounce or breakdown, and so each will likely be be tradeable in some fashion.  If you're eager to test your chops and perhaps make a little money, or to see the Hidden Pivot System at work in real time, stay tuned to the chat room for guidance from the many experts (aka, 'Pivoteers') who frequent the room. Some subscribers will already be short and quite profitable, having acted on a very timely suggestion provided in the Trading Room by 'GDL', who outlined the details of his bearish bet the night before. _______ UPDATE (May 13, 10:02 p.m. EDT): The first 'structural' support in the sequence given above, 2823.00, propagated a 50-point rally. Now please note that the futures are closing on 2771.00, the second number in the sequence. The reason I used the word 'guaranteed' above is that the machines that do most of the trading are programmed to think like human traders, pondering with autistic obsession the dynamic effects of prior highs and lows.

A mildly compelling Hidden Pivot resistance at 2941.50 has brought buyers to heel Sunday night, although we shouldn't expect them to linger for long.  When they push higher, as they will, look for the futures to take on the April 30 peak at 2965.00.  Assuming it too fails as a restraining force, the next logical Hidden Pivot target would be the 2980.75 target of the pattern shown in this chart. There has been one 'mechanical' buying opportunity so far, at 2823,44, but I doubt we'll see another with a pullback to the 2887 red line. In any event, the trade would require a 2840.75 stop-loss. ______ UPDATE (May 11, 4:32 p.m.): It would take a plunge below 2867.75, where an external low was recorded last Thursday on the way up, to generate a bearish impulse leg worthy of our attention on the hourly chart. Otherwise, all will remain as noted above.

Those who have closely observed the stock market's ups and downs over many years understand that it often acts as though it were detached from observable reality. This is so obvious at the moment that even casual market-watchers have come to realize that the absurdly strong performance of shares lately reflects nothing less than a kind of mass mental illness. Until recently, so strong a characterization would have been greeted with skepticism by those who are not tuned to the daily histrionics of shares.  Think of the skeptics as the extended family of a fictional Aunt Jean, whose behavior, according to family gossip, has grown a little strange lately.  She has always seemed a little eccentric, of course, and why should we worry if she has become a little moreso in her dotage? And then the shocker: With everyone seated around the Thanksgiving dinner table, Aunt Jean wrenches the carving knife from her brother's hands, stabs the turkey ten times, and shrieks "Death to the Paraclete!" This, in a manner of speaking, is the way the stock market has been acting lately. As such, it is no longer regarded as quaintly crazy. Indeed, even Wall Street's most reliable shills and apologists have taken to shaking their heads in disbelief. Some, including the Wall Street Journal, are in calculated denial. A WSJ headline over the weekend noted that the Smallest U.S. Stocks Are Rallying Despite Grim Economic Data.  However, this fails to capture the alarming recklessness pushing the very largest U.S. stocks, including Apple, Amazon and Google, toward or even above their previous highs. TSLA in particular has stoked the white-hot imagination of the lunatic fringe with a rally from 350 to 869 that recently brought the stock within 10 percent of all-time highs. Even the company's founder, Elon Musk, has

Stocks continue to mark time, giving up almost no ground as DaBoyz, with infinite patience, await the news that will ignite the next short squeeze. We'd intended to short the 250.43 target shown in the chart ourselves, assuming it was ever reached. The rally that was supposed to get it there is at five weeks and counting, and while this is not a record for how long it has taken for a stock to achieve an easy objective, it certainly deserves an honorable mention. If another dull day draws to a close, presumably with a modest final-hour frillip, and you are uncertain about whether to take a position over the weekend, I'd suggest flipping a coin and doing the opposite of whatever instruction it provides.

The stock market has settled into a tedious rhythm that could almost make one think there's nothing interesting going on in the world. Dull nights have been setting the tone for dull days, as occurred on Wednesday. Traders are waiting for news to move the markets, but perhaps all the news that matters, at least for the time being, is already out. So we are left with squabbling along the political fault lines of the pandemic. A Texas hairdresser was jailed for defying the quarantine, and the nation as always has divided roughly in half over the question of whether the state overstepped its bounds. All such convictions and fines are certain to be overturned if these cases ever get heard in an appellate court. If you watch Fox News, you've had enough; if CNN/MSNBC, anyone who defies the lockdown is a potential killer. A reasonable assumption is that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The fact that this question is unlikely to be settled, even broadly, promises to gnaw on the American psyche for years to come.

The bullish pattern shown, which promised just a few short weeks ago to deliver a run-up to 1873.90, is close to succumbing. Since gold loves to push bulls to the point of despair before turning around, we shouldn't give up on it quite yet, even if the futures stop out longs with a feint below C=1666.20.  If the feint turns into a rout, we'll regroup with fresh analysis. The intermediate- and long-term outlook would remain bullish nonetheless, but we should get used to thinking of bullion's longer-term uptrend as a bullish market, rather than a bull market.  The latter is what we witnessed in the Dow Industrials, Nasdaq and the S&Ps, which rallied almost relentlessly for 11 years no matter what the news. Gold, in contrast, has been mostly marking time,  demonstrating with an oft-tortuous uptrend that the bad guys can no longer punish it for more than a few days. ______ UPDATE (May 7, 9:05 p.m. EDT): Gold's best rally in more than two weeks has given it a running start at the 1770.10 midpoint Hidden Pivot where bulls failed the last time. They'll need to close the futures above it for two consecutive days to make a push to 1873.90. an odds-on bet. That would also activate the pattern itself for 'mechanically' trading the various levels. _______ UPDATE (May 12, 6:56 p.m.): Gold continues to mark time with gratuitous $60 swings. They are tradeable, of course, and entertaining to watch if you hold no position, but no fun otherwise. The bullish benchmarks flagged above will remain theoretically viable as long as 1666.20 is not exceeded to the downside.

A series of bullish targets in AAPL and the E-Mini S&Ps has kept us steadfastly on the right side of the trend, insane as it has seemed at times. In my latest update (see below), a target for the latter suggests it could be on its way to as high as 3149, just 7% below the all-time peak.  The target is not quite the sure thing we've enjoyed using lesser ABC patterns, but it looks like no worse than a 50-50 bet to be reached.  I've made the tout publicly viewable, although you would need to subscribe in order to access timely trading ideas tied to Hidden Pivot targets. Click here for a $1 trial subscription that will allow you to access all features and services of Rick's Picks, including two virtual rooms that draw great traders from around the world.

Today's chart shows an ambitious target at 3149.00 -- a swing-for-the-fences number that will spare us the annoyance of adjusting upward every time a lesser target is reached. The Dow would be trading within 10% of all-time highs at that point, the S&Ps within 7%. This may sound farfetched considering the state of the economy, but I'd lay even odds on this bet for three reasons: 1) the A-B impulse leg is the real McCoy, having exceeded a daunting external peak recorded on March 10; 2) the B-C leg has traded above the 2933.25 midpoint resistance; and 3) Friday's downdraft triggered a 'mechanical' buy, albeit a weak one.  All things considered, the pattern suggests 3149.00 has a good chance of being reached, perhaps after a struggle that could take 7-10 days. I am not putting out that number to you just so that you can obsess over shorting it. It is intended to open your eyes to bullish opportunities as the futures move higher. ______ UPDATE (May 6, 5:30 p.m.): Big players sat out the round, presumably amusing themselves while scalpers and day traders spent the entire session kicking each other in the nuts. As much was predictable when overnight action bogged down in tedium, as though there were nothing of interest going on in the real world. It also came as no surprise when the trading world's midgets an dwarves sent the futures into a gratuitous dive in the final hour. Please wake me when technical traders and machines programmed by nerds who have never traded anything in their lives have burned themselves out and price action returns to abnormal, the way we like it. _______ UPDATE (May 7, 9:25 p.m.): The futures are bound for a minimum 2929.00, the likeable target shown in this chart. If I say