Rick Ackerman

February Gold has a clear path to at least 4532.70 over the near term, a midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance. Price action there cannot but provide an accurate 'read' on trend strength, as well as a reliable idea of the speed and likelihood of a further rally to the conventional pattern's 'D' target at 5132.20. That is likely to be an important number for gold, and we shouldn't assume the futures will surpass it. That would leave gold well shy of the fantastic heights long predicted for this bull market by some seers. _______ UPDATE (Dec 23, 9:15 p.m.):  Tonight's easy move through the 4532.70 target advertised above has shortened the odds that the rally will continue to at least 5132.20, a potentially important Hidden Pivot target. 

Silver's ballistic ascent has left it out-of-synch with gold, which looks months away from a potential bull-market top. At the rate Silver is climbing, it could hit a correspondingly important target at 70.810 by Christmas. Since we should always have an alternative target lined up, I would need to create an extension with the C-D leg, shifting 'A' to the November 21 bar whose bottom is 48.710. We'll wait until 70.81 is hit before doing so, but be prepared for a significant (and tradable!) pullback when the target is hit. _____ UPDATE (Dec 23, 3:47 p.m.): The $2.07 pullback this morning from within 1.5 cents of the target billboarded above was brief and nasty, but it could have been worth as much as $10,000 per contract to anyone who traded against the trend. Silver's subsequent swift reversal to the upside suggests there is no stopping it. It has since traded within four cents of the 71.83 target of a much larger pattern aired here earlier, but only time will tell how much stopping power this major Hidden Pivot shows. _______ UPDATE (Dec 23, 9:34 p.m.): Silver futures have traded 47 cents above a 71.73 target that comes from the weekly composite chart. Visually, the overshoot is inconsequential, and the target itself, although imprecise because it comes from a blended chart, is too compelling to write off as yet. I'm, done projecting higher targets for the time being, however, since there are no bullish patterns remaining in any time frame that I like.

The widespread notion that a U.S. president can significantly influence the economy is mistaken. In observable fact, the broad cycles that bring us good times and bad, booms and busts, are vastly larger and more powerful than the presidency, too overwhelming to even affect, let alone command. Even the radical policies of Roosevelt's New Deal were insufficient to end a depression that had taken more than a generation to gather force. America's eventual emergence from those very hard times happened gradually during the administrations of Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy. Moreover, the post-war rebuilding process that made Europe and Japan America's best customers arguably would have happened cyclically without a Marshall Plan, and the U.S. financial system would have receded naturally from the fiscal excesses of a war that itself was an uncontrollable cyclical event. In this view, Kennedy, Clinton, Obama and Biden were simply lucky to have been elected with the economy and the stock market at cyclical lows. For in no way did they cause the upswings that shone on their terms in office, nor the felicitous shifts in the mood of consumers. The bullish cycle had to have been particularly strong to survive the misbegotten policies of Obama, the first president to revile  American exceptionalism, if not America itself. Surfing the Big Wave  Which brings us to Trump, the president who has come closest to affecting the economy both inside and outside the U.S.  Trump inherited a fiscal blowout impelled by the covid hoax, but he has since turned it into a credit and fiscal bonfire that can only end in ashes.  Trump has merely extended an especially powerful upswing that he did nothing to cause. It should have ended with the senile Biden and his autopen administration, but Trump's aggressive economic activism gave new life to booming

The chart shows the entire, insufferable month that Bitcoin speculators have spent jerking off, all of it in the context of a bear market that has lopped 36% from the value of the cryptocurrency so far. The closest downside target lies at p=81,163, a midpoint Hidden Pivot support associated with a 'D' target at 67,685.  That last number is my worst case for the next 2-3 weeks. There is another Hidden Pivot at 73,076 mentioned here earlier that could provide support, possibly just temporary.

I seldom use a 'marquee' low to project a target, but in this case, A= 3933.20 caught Friday's spike high almost exactly. The high overshot the target by $4.30, which is not enough to guarantee that higher prices are coming. They will, though, so let's keep this chart in mind as the futures make their way higher in the days and weeks ahead. It implies minimum upside over the near term to the red line (p=4532.70, the pattern's Hidden Pivot midpoint), and to as high as D=5132.20, a target that will become an odds-on bet if bulls bulldoze past p. ______ UPDATE (Dec 17, 5:09 p.m.): Check the chat room for my latest updates, targets and tradable ideas.

Friday's punitive reversal breached p=61.910 decisively, so the yellow flag is out. A tradable implication is that a rally now to the green line (x=63.497) would trigger a 'mechanical' short.  The pattern could also prove useful for bottom-fishing the decline using the lesser charts to set up 'camo' triggers at p2=60.322 and d=58.735.  We should also be alert to a possible breach of d. Although I don't expect it, that would signal a potentially bigger correction than the $6.35 selloff I warned about in the trading room. ______ UPDATE (Dec 17, 10:04 a.m.): Silver has uncorked yet another powerful rally -- as usual, without having fully corrected to a minor 'd' target. In this case, d=58.735, but the futures went no lower than 61.105. The upward reversal also made short work of the 'mechanical' short suggested above after failing by 20 cents to fall to a midpoint Hidden Pivot at 61.910 where the short could have been covered, at least partially,'by the book'.  The cautionary numbers noted above still obtain, meaning that a $6.35 correction is still overdue, and that a $1.58 drop would signal its onset. In any case, using a smaller, conventional pattern yields minimum upside over the near term to at least 69.250 (daily chart, A=56.850 on 12/4). A pullback first to x=63.074 off the current so-far high (66.650) would trigger a very opportune, 'mechanical' buy.

With its weak point 'A' low and its obviousness, the pattern shown should not be considered reliable for predicting a precise top. However, it can still serve us in several ways. For one, the easy move through p has shortened the odds of a rally to at least D=135.90. Also, a pullback to the green line would trigger a 'mechanical' buy sufficiently enticing that we should not want to miss it.  And if p2=123.76 shows stopping power, that would validate the pattern itself and its target. ______ UPDATE (Dec 20): Bulls further distanced this vehicle from the red line last week, increasing the likelihood that the 135.90 target will be achieved.  A pullback to the green line (x=99.49) in the meantime, however unlikely, should be viewed as an opportunity to get long or to augment an existing position 'mechanically'. 

I hesitate to call Bitcoin's laborious 36% selloff from the $126k top in mid-October a correction, since there's a good chance it's in a bear market and that it will never exceed that high. That will almost surely be the case if stocks have entered a bear market. It would likely be the worst since the 1930s, creating an investment environment in which a purely speculative hobgoblin such as Bitcoin could never survive, let alone flourish. Trump's MAGA narrative would also be a casualty, since merely scraping by, rather than achieving greatness, would become the central concern of most Americans.  Regarding the weekly chart that I've displayed this week, it leaves little room for doubt that Bitcoin's selloff will continue down to at least d=73,076. Moreover, a rally from current levels to as high as the green line (x=112,993) would trigger a 'mechanical' short, presumably amidst high-fiving by Bitcoin fans excited by the possibility of new record highs. ______ UPDATE (Dec 17, 5:13 p.m.): I've posted some finely nuanced downside targets in the chat room that are actionable. Check 'em out!

The futures looked so heavy on Friday that I was tempted to switch to a bearish, big-picture chart that requires a drop to 6654 to trigger a theoretical sell signal.  Instead, I've focused on a smaller time frame that can give us a more nuanced picture without the drama. The midpoint Hidden Pivot at 6864.25 will not likely be useful for bottom-fishing because it coincides with Friday's low. However, we can still monitor price action closely at p2=6838.00 and D=6812.00 closely to determine whether bears might be gaining the upper hand. An easy breach of D on first contact would be evidence of this, so be alert to the possibility.