Rick Ackerman

GDXJ triggered a 'mechanical' buy last week that got nowhere near the bids I'd suggested. Actually, the swoon didn't even trip a 'conventional' buy, since the week's low missed touching the red line by six cents (see chart inset). We may have to take what we can get if we're going to be on board for the finishing stroke to the 45.56 Hidden Pivot target shown.  I didn't mention it here explicitly last week (although it was shown in the chart), but it has been our lodestone since mid-March and never in doubt.

TLT has been biding its time since last December, trapped in a tedious range until it's ready to break out for a shot at the 115.32 target shown. Last week's dip to the green line triggered the first 'mechanical' buy signal we've seen on the daily chart this year. It would take a feint to the downside exceeding C=98.88 to stop out the trade. My hunch is that the next time buyers revisit the red line, a midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance, they will mean business.

I've drawn a moderately bullish pattern with a 4261.25 rally target that lies 75 points above Friday's close. I'll recommend extra caution if shorting there because the target was sired by three possible 'fathers' -- i.e., the three closely spaced lows at the start of the move. If the futures blow past D, that would warrant sliding 'A' down to October's bottom and shifting 'B' one peak to the left. The resulting target is 4453.25, the most bullish number I'm comfortable billboarding at the moment. Here's the chart. Pivoteers might be interested to know that my justification for the larger pattern hinges on the subtlety of the 'B' high having slightly surpassed the circled 'external' peak. That makes A-B legitimately impulsive, and therefore capable in theory of hurling the futures as high as 4453.25.  ______ UPDATE (May 4, 5:40 p.m.): A downtrend turned tortuous looks bound for this 4026.50 target. Let's see if sellers have enough gumption left after today's messy tussle to get there.

AAPL should be able to reach the 177.11 rally target easily, although that would imply a dearth of opportunities to get long 'mechanically' on a swoon. This is one instance where a 'mechanical' buy at the 160.51 red line (i.e., the midpoint Hidden Pivot) would be justified. Your bid there should be stopped at 154.87, yielding a risk/reward of 1:3 on entry that is predicated on exiting a long position at the 177.111 target. In this week's commentary, I have shifted my focus to Chipotle (CMG) as a stock market bellwether. AAPL still holds primacy for this purpose, but Chipotle recently signaled the very strong likelihood of a further, 35% move to as high as 2739. If so, the patience of permabears is likely to be tested beyond all endurance. Their capitulation would correspond to a blowoff top. It would appear that the Second Great Depression that is coming with the next bear market is about to be postponed yet again. That would be a small miracle, considering that an epic collapse in residential and commercial real estate is baked in the cake for 2024.

I seldom display charts that contain two technical indicators, but in this case I wanted you to see the whole picture, which projects a likely drop to D=1943.50. The June contract has been pounding on the lower support of a channel for two weeks, but when it finally gives way, expect it to head down to D, a middling Hidden Pivot support. The pattern is gnarly enough that it should allow for bottom-fishing with a tight stop-loss (or preferably a minor 'reverse pattern' trigger). Please note that the futures have been on a 'mechanical' sell signal since rallying to the green line a week ago. ______ UPDATE (May 2, 6:20): Gold continued its wacky, daily swings with an explosive rally that exceeded the point 'C' high of the bearish pattern targeted on 1943.50 (see above.) Now. if buyers impale p=2029.70, look for more upside to D=2078.40 over the near term.  ______ UPDATE (May 3, 6:18 p.m.): The futures got even wackier after the close, spiking nearly $50 to a so-far top at 2085 that lay 0.3% above my 2078.40 target. A wrenching $30 swoon [Update 5/4 at 8:36 a.m.: The swoon is currently $47] has followed, but hysterical buyers are probably still out there in droves. If they lift the lid anew, the futures could be bound for a more durable peak at 2183.30.  A vicious pullback in the meantime to 2020.00 would trigger a 'mechanical' buy, stop 19https://bit.ly/3ND4uvY80.00 (A=1906 on 3-15). Here's a fresh chart.

July Silver has been in a so-far moderate correction of a top two weeks ago at 26.43 that we had precisely anticipated for the May contract. The corrective reverse pattern that I've drawn is probably more bearish than what we'll see, but it should still work for purposes of trading, forecasting and gauging trend strength. For now, you can use p=23.94 as a minimum downside objective. That Hidden Pivot support can be bottom-fished provided you are capable of limiting the risk tightly. A decisive penetration of p would shorten the odds of more weakness to D=21.46. _______ UPDATE (May 1, 10:03 a.m.): Scoundrels, lunatics and short-covering bears inadvertently teamed up before dawn to goose silver into a spasm that has turned the short-term picture bullish. The rally would become still moreso if and when it exceeds the 26.43 peak recorded on April 14. That would bring a 26.91 target into focus (60-min, A=24.26 on April 4).  _______ UPDATE (May 2, 7:38 a.m.): The futures just bounced from a voodoo number without having taken out the 24.735 'C' low of the bullish pattern shown in the current chart. They will need to hit 25.12, however, to suggest the rally has sticking power, and 25.36 to get out of trouble. _______ UPDATE (May 2, 6:30 p.m.): The futures easily exceeded my benchmarks (see above), setting up a possible run at the 26.43 peak recorded on April 14.

We can be confident the so-far 11% pullback from the April 13 top at 43.89 is merely corrective rather than the start of a sickening decline, since GDXJ surpassed two important peaks -- one internal, the other external (circled in the chat) -- before taking a breather. This generated a quite powerful impulse leg, one with the potential to push this gold-miner proxy into the low-to-mid-50s. A reverse pattern that starts with January's 41.16 peak suggests GDXJ will become an opportune buy at either 37.40 or, worst/best-case, 35.24.

Bertie appears bound for the 31,473 target shown in the chart. My hunch is that bitcoin's handlers are intent on pushing it up to 40,000.  That, in my estimation, is where losers trapped in positions acquired at much loftier levels will turn greedy. Which is to say, instead of praying for an opportunity to get out for 'even' or a small loss, their fevered brains will begin to envision a move up to the fantastical levels bandied around when crypto hubris was peaking at the beginning of 2022. This will be bitcoin's last appearance on the touts list, at least for the foreseeable future. Only 13 subscribers voiced an interest in keeping it -- well shy of the 25 votes I had stipulated. Although there evidently is casual interest in BRTI, only one of those who spoke up has mentioned it by that symbol in the chat room, and even he did not comment on a string of dead-center-bullseyes I'd touted that would have been most useful to crypto traders. I will continue to respond in the chat room to queries concerning BRTI (or any other vehicle that tracks bitcoin and can be charted), and I am open to restoring it to the list if the very muted bitcoin chatter in the Trading Room rises to a din. Bring me a whole bunch of new, presumably young, subscribers who are gung-ho on bitcoin, and Bertie will be restored pronto.

You just know that the scoundrels who rig the energy markets and who have transformed them into a flighty carnival game have gone clueless when your editor cannot find a good place to plant an 'A' high or low on a NYMEX chart.  Even so, we got the big picture right intuitively by not buying into the steep, fleeting rally that occurred after the Saudis took a pot-shot at Biden by ostentatiously cutting output. It is ultimately demand for crude that causes its price to rise, not the curtailment of supply. With the world economy sinking into stagflation-at-best, a surge in energy demand seems unlikely. Ordinarily, I rarely post a tout without putting a number in it that you can trade. In this case, however, I'll say that the July contract is just a trade and leave it at that. _______ UPDATE (May 2, 10:41 p.m.): Wheeee! Isn't this fun? It's probably time for another threatening PR release from the cartel that couldn't shoot straight.