Rick Ackerman

Permabears should curb their hopes, since AAPL's upward stab through p=189.07, although still tentative, was unambiguously bullish. It is also bullish that the stock has closed for two consecutive weeks above this crucial resistance.  The extent of any correction remains to be seen, but a particularly brutal selloff down to the green line (x=156.62) would create a back-up-the-truck buying opportunity. Assuming the stock doesn't leap from the starting gate on Monday and run away this week, my gut feeling is that it could spend much of the summer pussyfooting near the red line (p=189.07). We can focus on short-term option strategies in the meantime, since even minor, meaningless swings hold opportunity if we get the timing of them precisely right. We still hold a few 14 July 180 puts with a cost basis of around 0.50.  They are a distant longshot at this point, but you should nonetheless be offering half of them for 1.00, g-t-c.

The downside 'D' target at 98.44 (see inset) is so compelling that a tradeable bounce from somewhere very near there is all but certain. Will it be sustainable? Probably not, since there is no indication that Fed policy is about to change significantly. However, we'll monitor the presumably corrective rally closely, since the creation of an impulse leg, even on a chart of lesser degree, could portend a potentially important tone change. To play the bounce, use call options expiring no later than July 22, pegged to the 101 or 102 strike. If I'm in the chat room at the time, I may be able to provide more-detailed guidance.

The dollar was plummeting when the week ended, so I've changed the view to graphically display a 99.72 target we can use as minimum downside objective for the near term. It is tied to a 'D' target at 93.55 given here previously that would equate to an 18.5% drop in the Dollar Index since it topped at 114.78 last September. This would leave it just a tad shy of 'official' bear-market territory, but considering the size of the market for dollars, it has suffered damage commensurate with a Category 5 hurricane. The dollar will have its day eventually when debt deflation rears up, but until then, debtors should be relieved that a strong dollar is not compounding their problems from higher interest rates. _______ UPDATE (Jul 15): Last week's hellish plunge brought the Dollar Index down to the 99.72 target almost precisely. This is the midpoint Hidden Pivot support of a pattern projecting to as low as the 93.55 target noted above, and it must hold like a rock if the dollar is going to avoid diving anew in the months ahead. _______ UPDATE (Jul 18, 6:29 p.m.): The support is holding, but only barely. It is not a bullish sign that sellers have been pounding on it for a week.

The week ended with a thud, but the futures still failed to take out any lows on the daily chart. The first lies 66 points below Friday's close, but it would take a further drop exceeding early June's 4305 low to create even a hint of menace. In contrast, there are numerous bullish signs whose significance is beyond question. For one, a clear and compelling Hidden Pivot resistance at 4471.00 has been exceeded twice. This might look like a double top to some, but the fact that so challenging an impediment was exceeded at all suggests that any weakness will be merely corrective. Also, all price action since early June has occurred with the futures trading above a key 'external' peak at 4409 recorded last August. Under the circumstances, I'd suggest treating any further weakness, if it occurs at all, as a buying opportunity. Set an alert at 4305 if you like, but don't let nutty intraday swings faze you or encourage excess in the meantime.

August Gold has struggled for loft after bouncing from just beneath a Hidden Pivot support at 1903.90 that I'd flagged on June 29. Bullion tends to taunt us with weakness before rallying sharply (albeit fleetingly) to nowhere in particular. In this case, however, it looks like it wants to go lower in order to get better footing for a sustained uptrend. We can use the 1875.00 downside target shown for now, but we'll switch to a more bullish outlook for trading purposes if buyers can push above an external peak at 1949.00 recorded two weeks ago. _______ UPDATE (Jul 13, 10:15 a.m.): The futures tripped a 'mechanical' short when they came within a hair of x=1969.30 at 8:35. The subsequent $12 dive could have been shorted with a reverse-pattern trigger, but I am suggesting only that you paper-trade this one. If it is stopped out with a rally above the pattern's 'C' high, that would be the most bullish event we've seen in a while. Even then, we shouldn't trust the rally until it has created a series of impulse legs on the lesser charts.

Silver has more stubbornly resisted the tug of gravity than gold, but the 21.44 downside target remains a logical short-term price objective nonetheless.  An unexpected pop to 23.90 would trigger a 'conventional' buy signal, but until such time as that occurs, we should trade this contract with a bearish bias. Although it seems unlikely the 22.34 low recorded on June 23 will prove to be an important one, it is capable if it endures of launching the futures to as high as 28.56.

GDXJ would give gold-stock bulls reason for optimism if it can pop above the 'external' peak at 37.68 recorded on June 16. However, it is more realistic to expect additional slippage toward the 32.25 low that has shaped the pattern shown. A breach thereof would create a buying opportunity, even if it were merely to take advantage of a likely fake-out rally that doesn't get very far. Please note that GDXJ is still on a 'mechanical' buy signal from June 20 that we passed up.

August Crude's histrionics have been easily tradeable, most recently via a nasty dive on Thursday from within three cents of a rally target advertised here when fresh touts went out to you last Sunday evening. The futures rampaged to a strong close on Friday that could get legs, but more immediately they will face resistance from the 74.29 Hidden Pivot resistance shown in this chart. Pivoteers familiar with reverse-pattern  (rABC) trades can try it with a trigger interval no greater than 16 cents, but be alert to a possible short squeeze that blows the target to smithereens when trading resumes this evening.

Will the rich and powerful own everything when the global financial system collapses from too much debt? Supposedly, "they" have been plotting and preparing for this all along -- even getting a new money system ready to make the takeover complete. But this theory makes no more sense than the one that puts the same evil geniuses in charge of the world's wealth after a 'vaccine' time-bomb kills off billions of gene-pool riffraff, including you, me and most of our neighbors. Will "they" really want to live in a world emptied of humanity by death and disease -- a world where yacht skippers, sommeliers, Ferrari mechanics, truffle-hunters, couturiers, gourmet chefs, interior designers and even bootblacks have perished? They might as well be feudal lords living in the 1300s, walled off from the devastation and misery of bubonic plague. Even Bill Gates, who reportedly owns a quarter-million acres of farmland, might have trouble feeding himself and his fellow eugenicists if there are no workers to seed and harvest the land. And how will Klaus Schwab, Imperial Wizard of the One-Worlders, celebrate victory with friends in Davos if there is no one to fly them there, or to provision a banquet hall with ample quantities of Beluga, foie gras and smoked trout croquettes? Those who believe that an all-knowing, all-powerful "they" have been plotting a global shakedown to steal the world's wealth and resources might well ask, What assets will remain for them to command? It is a massive deleveraging event that is coming, and it will turn all kinds of financialized exotica, including reverse floaters, offshore drilling leases and securitized debt, into rubbish. Meanwhile, returns tied to the production and distribution of critical resources such as water end energy will become too tightly regulated during the Second Great Depression to spawn