Rick Ackerman

I featured Microsoft at the top of last week's list because it looked primed to test my theory that the bull market is over. The stock did in fact go against the bearish grain by triggering a 'mechanical' buy at the green line (x=506.00).  The subsequent rally has yet to develop legs, however, and would need to pop decisively above p=519.75 to offer a profit-taking opportunity as well as evidence MSFT is capable of reaching the 547.12 target. If that is what the world's second-most-valuable company's shares are about to do, it means the broad averages are going to rally strongly as well. My gut feeling is that this bounce will not be memorable, let alone record-breaking, but I'm keeping an open mind.

The bull market begun in May continues to make slow progress as it head-butts resistance at the 91.24 midpoint Hidden Pivot shown. Because bulls have pushed past it slightly, any swoon to the green line would be a 'mechanical' buy. Such weakness would equate to a perhaps fleeting spike in long-term interest rates, which, although unlikely, is not inconceivable. The rally in Treasurys is ironic because Trump's obsession with stimulus has put a great deal of pressure on U.S. debt. However, it is the President's bold leadership that has attracted bond buyers from around the world, reducing pressure on the Fed to mop up paper for which there might otherwise be weak demand. It is a big change from Biden, a walking corpse whose style of governing was enough to give investors in the U.S. and abroad the dry heaves.  For your information, a rally to the 94.02 target would equate to a fall in long-term rates from a current 4.60 % to 4.39%. Although that's not enough to shift re-fis into second gear, it certainly would be a positive for the U.S. economy.

Silver signaled a potentially significant reversal Thursday night at the same time as gold, although I did not put out an additional trade recommendation in the wee hours as I did with Gold futures and GDXJ.  Both overshot Hidden Pivot correction targets on Friday, Silver by enough to make it a short-term prospect for shorting.  Do so gingerly, using the 50.945 midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance of the pattern shown.  You can pare the theoretical entry risk by at least 90% by using a reverse-trigger pattern fashioned from a chart of minute degree. I have explained this tactic many times, but if you are unfamiliar with my instructions, don't do the trade. You could attempt the short at d=52.230 as well. Whatever happens, buyers' progress through the Hidden Pivot levels shown on the chart can tell us much about whether the short-to-intermediate trend may have shifted to bearish. Please note that the Big Picture remains insanely bullish, and I mean that literally, since London deliveries reportedly are caught in a potentially fatal squeeze. A chronic shortage of 'physical' has persisted for years, and I am not sure why it took so long to blow up in the greedy faces of the white-collar carnies who run the game. Until now, it has been easy for them to borrow bullion for next to nothing, and to substitute 'paper' silver (and gold) whenever it suits them. Now they are on the ropes, realizing that Trump's free-market team is not about to rescue them. Perhaps their lucrative scheme is about to be undone by a bull market, much as a bear market undid Bernie Madoff's fraud.

If you followed the simple instruction I put out Thursday night, which flouted a ballistic rally, you got short using a 94.50-point trigger interval when the futures fell to x=4297.60. Thereafter, you would have covered half the position at 4203.10 on the subsequent decline to just beneath that Hidden Pivot midpoint support. The theoretical gain would have been $9450, enough to provide a substantial cushion to help you manage the remaining risk.  The fully-corrected target is D=4014.30, which, if achieved, would yield an additional profit of $18,890, for a total gain of  $28,340. However, if the bull market in gold is still intact, the futures should bounce to new highs from p=4203.10 rather than continue lower. Alternatively, they could fall to p2=4108.70 before reversing, so you should be alert to this possibility if you are still short.  Most immediately, I'll suggest an 'impulsive' stop-loss at 4332.30, just above a minor peak created Friday on the way down.

Nasty relapses usually improve our odds of making a profit when we do a 'mechanical' buy, but in this instance the gap-down plunge was too strong for me to suggest putting a bid at the green line (or slightly below it, as was possible at the close on Friday). It is not the punitive behavior of the selling per se that has put me off, but rather the protracted A-B leg that amounts to just a weak impulse leg.  We'll watch from the sidelines for now, but please note that the D target at 118.08 will remain viable until such time as C=98.44 is exceeded.

As last week drew to a close, bears bludgeoned a 'hidden' midpoint support at 108,827 with sufficient vigor to suggest that Bitcoin is a shoe-in to fall to at least p2=100,093. You should play for a tradable bounce from that Hidden Pivot, or somewhere very close to it, since a strong bounce is all but certain.  Whether this hoax gets pummeled down to d=91,358 before the global house of cards topples is still speculative, but the odds are good enough that we should plan on shorting the bounce from p2 with a 91,358 downside objective in mind.  Meanwhile, there is no reason to think the 18% decline so far from early October's record 126,396 has stirred up any fear among the gambling addicts, avocado toast-eaters and bed wetters who trade the cryptos via RobinHood. They will s**t the bed before the game is over, but that time is not now.

The aging bull market smells like it's in a topping process, although it could take a vicious head-fake or two to new highs to set the hook. Last week, I raised the possibility that shares had entered a vortex similar to the one that led to the 1929 Crash. A key similarity is that investors have begun to freak out over tariff news they'd grown accustomed to shrugging off.  Is it possible the reason for the stock market's hysterical behavior lies elsewhere? The mainstream media and its vaunted experts used China's 'rare-earths' threat ten days ago to explain why shares plummeted that Friday. However, when the market began to recover Sunday evening, they changed their tune with sheepish second-day stories about how rare-earth minerals turn out to be not so rare after all. It is the breathtaking stupidity and incompetence of journalists who invent the news that has caused me to tune out their blather and focus solely on charts when I forecast market trends. As far as I've observed over 50 years, price movement is caused mainly by arcane cyclical forces that color our perceptions of news. Is it not, therefore, reasonable to infer that the stock market's ups and downs create the headlines, not, as is almost universally believed, the other way around? A Bitcoin 'Tell'   Far more interesting to me these days than the stock market's headless-chicken act is the spectacular bull market in gold.  Prices have risen by 31% in the last two months, impaling Hidden Pivot targets as though they were as mushy as journalists' brains. Until recently, I'd assumed quotes were rising so steeply because gold, traditionally a haven in times of uncertainty, had glimpsed some horrible economic catastrophe ahead. However, there is a second possibility -- that gold is caught up in the

A short squeeze on Silver in the London market has pushed quotes easily past a Hidden Pivot target at 50.955 that had seemed ambitious less than a week ago. This has put the December contract on course for additional gains up to D=55.185 over the near term.  Judging from the way buyers fist-pumped through the midpoint 'hidden' resistance at 50.943, they are no worse than an 80% shot to achieve D sometime soon. In the somewhat unlikely event of a felicitous swoon over the next 3-5 days, belated buyers should position themselves with a 'mechanical' bid at x=48.820, stop 46.695. ______ UPDATE (Oct 14, 10:35 a.m.): The fresh tout I put out last night at 10:20 p.m. (see above), nailed a quick, easy profit of $10,600 per contract. This graph shows how December Silver swooned overnight to a low at 48.75 that lay within 0.14% of the 'mechanical' bid I'd suggested. This means you would have endured no more than $350 of adversity to capture a gain of $10,600 (or an additional $3,300, for a total of $14,200, if you held out for the actual, overnight high at 51.160 that occurred somewhat above the red line). The 55.185 rally target remains valid as a minimum upside objective for the next two weeks.

I've put MSFT at the top of the list because it is about to provide the clearest test of whether a bear market has in fact begun.  No matter how bearish one's outlook is for the stock market following Friday's stunning reversal, MSFT would trigger an irresistible 'mechanical' buy signal if it touches the green line (x=506.06), as seems likely. That doesn't necessarily mean the implied bounce will achieve d=547.12, effectively reviving the bull market. More likely in my estimation is that a weak bounce will carries no higher than p=519.75, the midpoint Hidden Pivot. Whatever happens, the second most valuable company in the world cannot but reveal the health of the bull market, or lack thereof.