With Sam Bankman Fried's sordid tale no longer getting airplay, the hucksters in charge of bitcoin have seized the moment to goose cryptos higher with almost no bullish buying. It remains to be seen where heavy supply will spoil the fun, but you can count on delusion-resistant pockets of it at round numbers: 25,000, 30,000, 35,000 and so on. The first is likely to give way shortly, if for no other reason than that a series of highs made there in July and August looms, a tempting bullseye on the backs of doubters. Moreover, no one would be stupid enough to get short here and now, rendering that additional source of supply moot. Nearly all of our 'mechanical' trades in bitcoin over the years have been profitable because this tactic is particularly well suited to exploiting vehicles that move violently. In this case, however, we'll pass up the recent signal to get short at x=21,774 and wait for a less risky chance at 'voodoo' numbers that lie, respectively, near 30,000 and 40,000. Whether bitcoin gets there or not depends entirely on whether the bear rally in stocks keeps on going. When the cryptos eventually resume their fall to oblivion, however, you can bet that the first few days of the collapse will astound with their magnitude. _______ UPDATE (Feb 10): Turns out there was supply lurking at 25,000 after all -- so much of it, in fact, that this flying pig barely poked its snout above 24,000 before sellers smacked it down. The high was strongly impulsive on the daily chart nonetheless, so buyers will assuredly be back when 'news' that could be construed as even remotely bullish for cryptos surfaces. Here's the picture. _______ UPDATE (Feb 15, 8:43 p.m.): Once above mid-August's peak at 25,203, BRTI's no-supply crime spree
Treat the stock market as you would a sleazy carnival game and you hold the key to accurately predicting its behavior. Take AAPL, for instance. We should have known that permabears were being set up for a fleecing when an always-complicit news media worked slavishly to stoke anticipation of horrendous Q4 earnings. Apple certainly didn't disappoint in that regard when the company on Thursday reported its first year-over-year sales decline since 2019. Such announcements are usually made after the close, enabling the thieves who manipulate stock prices for a living to work their magic. As they have done countless times in the past, they pulled their bids in after-hours trading following Apple's grim announcement. This induced widows and pensioners to vomit Apple shares at distress prices five percent below where they'd traded on the close. QE Mythology With sellers utterly spent, DaBoyz were easily able to short-squeeze the stock back up to the intraday high within hours. The rigged ups and downs that made this ruse work are shown in this chart. From that point forward, their clown-dunking antics were on autopilot. As the stock relapsed in the wee hours, they covered shorts laid out at Thursday evening's secondary peak. Sellers didn't realize how badly they'd been had until around 5 a.m., when AAPL finished basing on near-zero volume and launched into an 8% rally, from 145 to 157, before the regular session began. QE mythology aside, this is how the Fed effectively injects large sums of instantly spendable money into the economy. With credit stimulus there will always be a lag between falling interest rates and their intended effect on consumer spending. But gift investors/consumers with an 8% rally in the world's biggest-cap stock on a Friday afternoon and you have spiked the wealth effect with methamphetamine. By the
I'm still shaking my head, wondering how I got played this morning. Seems I was too eager for the weak opening to turn into Antietam for bulls. Viewed with hindsight and proper perspective, however, the rigged, oversold opening was the same old one-trick pony we've seen a hundred times before, and it barely dented the bullish chart shown in the inset. This simple view says the bear market rally is headed most immediately to 4220.25, although I'm tempted to use a marquee 'A' at 3735.00 that would max out the pattern at 4233.50. That should be it for this hoax, but let's keep an open mind. Of the two targets, we'll take our pick and get short when -- not if -- the futures get there. We can go with the bullish flow in the meantime -- no matter what the news or how dismal the earnings announcements, and regardless of how brazenly the openings are manipulated. ______ UPDATE (Feb 3, 11:32 a.m.): Here's the ES chart, updated. I have settled on the maxed-out target at 4233.50 (as implied when I bold-faced it to begin with). Market behavior lately has been as deranged as I can ever recall. The chart eliminates the wacko-o psychosis of price movements in gold, ES and FAANGs, etc. and renders them, simply, as impulse legs and ABCD patterns that don't care about craziness. None of it has disturbed the target, which went out to you last Sunday, when the futures were trading 100 points lower.
The steep, slick wall created by last summer's plunge left us with no 'external' peaks to judge the staying power of the bounce since October's 91.85 low. I've used an unconventional 'reverse' pattern to provide some clues, and it would seem to imply that TLT will rally to at least D=113.78. This is affirmed by its unwillingness to provide bulls with any good 'mechanical' buying opportunities on the daily or weekly charts. We'll want to pay close attention if the rally exceeds 113.78 and pushes toward a test of the 120.69 peak recorded in August. Its decisive breach would be a big deal, since that would suggest interest rates are likely to keep falling.
I still think this is the pattern that will usher gold futures above $2,000 for the fist time since since April -- just not on our schedule. It did nothing as the week ended to monetize the 'mechanical' buy triggered on Thursday, although the position was showing a slight gain at the closing bell. I cannot 'guarantee' D=2017.70 will be reached, since buying died precisely at the 1966.60 midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance (p was a decent speculative short, actually, for subscribers who trade this vehicle aggressively). If the futures dip below the green line and you hold no position, try bottom fishing at 1921.2 with a stop-loss at 1920.80. This is a speculative play based on the 60-minute chart where a= 1966.10 on 1/26 and b=1935.10. _______ UPDATE (Jan 31, 6:42 a.m.): Last week's stall at the p midpoint pivot of D=2017.70 is about to have consequences, with the futures poised to negate the pattern noted above with a marginal dip (or worse) below C=1915.50. They'll come down to around 1900 if they slip any lower, or possibly even to 1891.10 to test an important low recorded there on January 12. _______ UPDATE (Jan 31, 10:23 p.m.): Ha ha very funny. The futures' dive on the opening bar failed by a tick to stop out the bullish pattern and its 2017.70 target. If the April contract hits p=1966.6 and then falls again to x=1941.10, that's would trip a 'mechanical' buy that I'd recommend, subject to the usual caveats. _______ UPDATE (Feb 1, 6:26 pm.): The drop from just shy of 1966 only came down to 1955.40, so there was no trade. It left this pattern, with a short-term target at 1982.30. The pattern looks opportune for a 'mechanical' buy following a one-level pullback to either p=1968.90 or x=1962.10. Attempt the
I've altered the view somewhat, lowering point A' and its target to make the chart seem less discouraging. Previously, there was an unachieved rally target at 24.95 that stayed perpetually out of reach despite gold's having achieved a corresponding target. The justification is that Silver is in a bull market, which implies that the two-month struggle to achieve D has been accumulation rather than distribution. Even so, March Silver may have to fall out of its tedious range to get a running start on a new recovery high. In the meantime, it remains untradeable, other than by those who enjoy hunkering down on the 15-minute chart for days on end.
Having topped last week a penny below a longstanding Hidden Pivot target at 41.17, GDXJ presumably will need a little rest for the next upthrust. When this mining ETF takes flight, the 43.49 Hidden Pivot shown in the chart can serve as a minimum price objective. The pattern is less than ideal, since B is a 'sausage' peak that failed to surpass some external peaks well to the left. However, the subsequent dance so close to p= 38.71 has made up for the typical sausage drawbacks of unreliability and inaccuracy. Moreover, it's hard to imagine GDXJ lacking the power to reach D no matter how illegitimate the pattern. A vicious swoon to x=36.31 would trigger a screaming 'mechanical' buy. In this case, however, given the relentless persistence of the trend, it can be attempted on a pullback to p=38.71 with a stop-loss at 37.11. Paper-trade this one if you still need persuading that the preponderance of 'mechanical' trades posted here and in the chat room are winners. _______ UPDATE (Feb 3, 11:37 a.m. EST): If this unusually vicious takedown continues, X=36.31 should be bought 'mechanically', stop 33.92. A 'camo' trigger should be used to reduce entry risk by perhaps 90%. This gambit is 'textbook', but paper-trade it if you are not yet comfortable with 'mechanical' set-ups.
I'd said shorting 4118.00 would be a no-brainer on Friday -- except that the futures didn't get there. Instead, they topped almost exactly at the 'D' target of the lesser pattern shown in the chart (inset). Bears shouldn't get their hopes too high however, since I expect the futures to reverse Sunday night or Monday and reach D=4118.00. It can be shorted with a very tight stop-loss -- preferably with a tight 'camo' set-up on a lesser chart -- but we'll need to pay close attention in any case to how the rally interacts with a D resistance that has been three weeks in coming. There are no 'mechanical' buys left in the pattern no matter how hard ES falls, since it is spent. ______ UPDATE (Jan 30, 9:36 a.m. EST): Like many of you, I don't trust my lying eyes when I see the bear market rally fall precipitously ahead of the opening, as it is doing today. Usually that means DaBoyz are fixing to exhaust sellers, the better to short-squeeze stocks an hour later. We should know shortly if their scheme is doomed and the bear rally begun in October has ended, since the decline has triggered a textbook 'mechanical' buy at 4053, stop 4027. If the stop is hit and no sharp rally follows immediately after, that would suggest that the heavily engineered celebration on Wall Street since mid-October is over. As of Friday, ES had not quite reached a juicy target at 4118 where I'd suggested getting short. The top actually occurred nine points below it, at the exact 'D' target of a lesser pattern noted at the time. Stocks supposedly fell overnight because earnings announcements due out this week from four behemoths -- Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook -- might have to acknowledge deepening (albeit
We had AAPL's number on Friday, allowing all you option junkies to get short with puts just a hair off the top. Don't count your chickens, though, even if a nimble subscriber reported a quick, $600 profit in the final minutes. The finale featured a panic-induced short-squeeze to slightly above the day's previous peak, then a collapse cleverly timed so that it wouldn't have enough time to snowball and cause real damage. Here's what the end-of-day plunge looked like on the lesser charts: a mash-up of AAPL's weaselly sponsors and little guys who never give up on the challenge of beating them at their stupid, nasty little game.
Although I track crude because it's the world's most important commodity, its gratuitous feints and swoons are too tiresome for me to follow closely enough for day- and swing-trading by the relative handful of subscribers who seem interested. Be that as it may, tradeable highs and lows are as easy to nail as a balsa two-by-four. Perfect opportunities do not materialize every day, but when they do they are easy to spot and work reliably. And, of course, when price action turns freakish, the task of setting up winning 'mechanical' trades is a piece of cake. The foregoing is not meant to discourage you, but rather the opposite. If subscribers can come up with Hidden Pivot ideas to trade this rabid mongoose, I'll be happy to vet them. For starters, focus on the pattern shown in the chart, but after it has taken out the point 'C' low, 78.45, by just a few ticks, then reverses. For now I'll highlight the 86.95 target anyway so as not to seem clueless about where this contract is headed: tortuously higher. That's how the little sonofabitch works, but I'll make it your job to find the opportunities. _______ UPDATE (Jan 30, 1:52 p.m.): March Crude provided precisely the opportunity this morning I had detailed above. Please check my chat room posts from this morning about this, since they describe in detail, with text and charts, how you might have proceeded. ______ UPDATE (Jan 30, 7:52 p.m.): Here's part of my chat room post from this morning, with a chart showing a clear path down to 77.05: For all of crude's spastic price action, it is relatively easy to read and to trade, provided you are willing to work at it. The linked chart shows the pattern that is commanding March Crude at the
