Switching to the September contract, the futures were on their way up to at least 7570 .75 when the closing bell ended a do-nothing week. This is all but guaranteed, given the way buyers fist-pumped through the midpoint Hidden Pivot on Thursday. The futures were little changed from the previous Friday's close, although a gratuitous feint south on Wednesday made this vehicle worth trading. Friday's action featured one 'mechanical' buy signal at the red line, although we typically do them only at the green line (i.e., at x=7351.75). When the new week begins on Sunday afternoon, I recommend getting short for a scalp-trade at 7570.75, but only to subscribers who know how to reduce the entry risk to relative pocket change by using a 'camouflage' trigger. The technique is spelled out in detail in the $2500 Hidden Pivot course that I've made available free to subscribers. _______ UPDATE (Jun 14, 10:50 p.m.): The prospect of Whirled Peas goosed stocks hard when they resumed trading this afternoon. The E-minis came within an inch of the 7570.75 target on the opening bar, then leaped above it after a shallow pullback. A second pullback from the new top at 7574,75 would have triggered a tight 'camo' short with (visual) TI= 5.25 points; the resulting loss would have been a relatively modest $260 per contract. At the moment, the futures are in a runaway short-squeeze that has hit 7583.75 so far. It can be shorted nonetheless using a larger reverse trigger of 15.75 points. That is too wide and risky for my taste, although I would rate the trade no worse than an even bet to make money. Based on the so-far high at 7583.25, the short would come at 7567.25, with 50% to be covered at 7551.25. With index futures in an apparent
Friday's opening bar just missed touching a 380.10 correction target I'd disseminated in the chat room earlier in the week. The low missed by $2.16, and although the stock had fallen nearly $90 to get there, subscribers who use my targets are accustomed to better precision. For the sake of practicality, however, I will consider the target as fulfilled (although I'd be tempted to bottom-fish with a camo trigger if MSFT relapses at the start of the week. It's important to get this stock right, since I still consider it the #1 bellwether for the bull market. That's mainly because a large piece of the company's revenues come not from AI-related hubris, but from the bedrock of recurring sales of the Windows operating system and online services.
Gold caught a favorable breeze on Friday for a change, but if you're a long-term investor, I'd suggest enjoying the countertrend while it lasts. The initial breach of the 4372 midpoint Hidden Pivot support was sufficiently clear to imply that the 3800.60 target will be reached. It could turn out even worse, actually, since a bear-market low at 3606.40 is technically possible if you slide the pattern's point 'A' high up to the record (one-off) at 5493, recorded on March 2. And don't get too excited if this bounce continues all the way up to the green line (x=4617.00), since that would trigger an appealing short (stop 4954.00).
Friday's rally mirrored gold's, meaning you shouldn't get your hopes too high. The pattern suggests that once the bounce ends and silver resumes its downward course, it could eventually go as low as 54.735. That's 20% below these levels, meaning a whole 'nother bear market could unfold before Ag finds a bottom. If that sounds overly bearish, we can allow for the possibility that bulls have turned things around if the July contract surpasses the 77.355 peak recorded on June 2. For current purposes, however, we'll plan on trading with a bullish bias if and when the futures push above last week's 68.800 peak. That would generate a bullish impulse leg on the hourly chart, brightening the short-term outlook.
Sellers struggled harder in GDXJ to break down the midpoint support (p=110.36) than in either Silver or Gold futures. That makes its chart more bullish, but not much. We should therefore infer that the bear market will resume, and that GDXJ will eventually fall to D=84.17 once this bounce is over. Of course, let's also allow for the possibility that the rally is for real by stipulating that a move exceeding May 29's peak of 120.05 would put bulls solidly back in charge after spending more than three months in purgatory.
Yields on the Ten-Year Note have fallen sharply since getting within pitching wedge distance of the 4.75% target shown. It's too early to say with confidence whether this is the beginning of a significant downtrend or just a correction that will eventually give way to a new upward surge. My strong gut feeling is the latter, but we may soon get to test that prediction if TNX continues down the green line (X=48.18. That would trigger a 'mechanical' buy signal with subsequent potential to reach p=44.90 or higher, an event that cannot but give us a definitive picture of trend strength.
I've flagged Hidden Pivot targets as low as 51.60, which would become no worse than an even bet following two consecutive monthly closes below 85.54 (basis the NYMEX August contract). This picture shows how an interim low near 75 hardly seems far-fetched, even for someone not adept at reading charts. Although I usually tune out head-and-shoulder patterns because they are nearly everywhere one chooses to see them, this one is so pretty that it literally points the way down to a basing target near the April 17 low where the pattern began. This implies that any rally should be shorted, presumably at a midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance. That actually occurred Friday morning at an 85.22 pivot whose provenance is proprietary. The theoretical trade ended the day significantly in the black, but it would be validated if the end-of-day weakness we saw continues down to 77.60, the 'D' target of a minor pattern on the hourly chart.
I'm taking an extended break from the daunting challenge of predicting the stock market's behavior each week as though it were correlated rationally and logically with events in the real world. My weekly commentaries will resume when I am feeling better up to the task. In the meantime, if you need a regular dose of Rick's Picks, don't pass up a free opportunity to use and enjoy all of the site's amenities, including the Trading Room, the heart and soul of my service. Its purpose is to help investors make money, a goal it achieves so consistently that gifted traders from around the world like to hang out there. The photo above shows Venezuela's Angel Falls, the world's highest waterfall and a good metaphor for my outlook on the stock market. Finally, here's a link to my latest rant at This Week in Money. [Note: This link will change to present fresh material every other week.]
Yields on the U.S. Ten-Year Note signaled an imminent rise to as high as 4.80% with Friday's powerful leap. Although we don't typically use patterns as obvious as this one for trading purposes, it should prove reliable for forecasting rate changes over the next 3-4 weeks. The A-B impulse leg is a strong one, presumably with enough boost to reach the target. Moreover, a decisive overshoot would strongly imply a further move to the psychologically important 5% level. There is one more thing to note, based on the chart: once above the red line, a pullback that would be misread by many observers as a sign of easing would actually be giving 10-Year rates a running start at 5%.
It's not just the daily graph that looks heavy. On both the weekly and monthly charts, ahead of the surge in March, price lows since early 2025 have exceeded granite Hidden Pivot supports. This suggests that crude's histrionics in response to the war with Iran were all but ordained to fall short of significant new highs. But easing is another matter, since it could take months or even years for prices to settle down to whatever passes for normal in such heavily manipulated markets. In the meantime, we are fortunate that traders and investors have become bored half to death with Trump's daily pronouncements on the war and the 'situation' in the Strait of Hormuz. Barring some unforeseen catastrophe in the Middle East, you can look for quotes to fall as low as 51.60 over the intermediate- to long-term. Two consecutive monthly closes below 85.54 would shorten the odds of this.
