Rick Ackerman

MSFT's double top is so obvious that we should be cautious about believing the party is over. My read is that the dirtballs who manipulate the stock for a living had no alternatives. Although they short-squeezed earnings news for all it was worth, they lacked the wattage and the daring to push above July's 555 peak. The subsequent relapse was so nasty that it will require some time to build a base capable of supporting a push to new record highs. So many bulls got sandbagged by last week's Whoopee Cushion ride that the retracement will probably take out the 492.37 low recorded early in September. Since the stock market and Microsoft will continue to stay roughly in synch, the foregoing implies that the bull market is due for a significant and possibly protracted correction.  I have no interesting Hidden Pivot targets at the moment, but that shouldn't preclude our trading this feisty little monster between feints.

Bulls won last week's teeter-totter competition, but not by much. They held the line against sellers on Friday with a rally into the close that averted a fall to the red line (p=3932.60) after a theoretical sell signal was triggered. Now they will need to negate the bearish pattern by rallying above C=4059.90. If the effort fails, however, p would still be an enticing place to attempt bottom fishing with a tightly crafted 'camo' trigger.  Price action there will also give us a reliable means of assessing trend strength, since a decisive breach of the 'hidden support' would imply that further slippage is likely. ________ UPDATE (Nov 6, 7:50 a.m. EST): Gold has been spasming tediously sideways for eight days, but it looks ready to push above the 4059.90 top of the range to a 4068.00 Hidden Pivot target (30m, A=3934.20 on 10/29).  It will need to decisively exceed that resistance, however, to signal the possible resumption of the long-term bull market. A more critical, conventional resistance lies at 4175.00 in the form of a daunting series of peaks, the highest of which is 4175.00.  Bottom line: bulls have plenty of work to do to get back on track. If they fail, my worst-case correction target would be 3802.60.

Silver is close to aborting a 'mechanical' sell signal that triggered last Tuesday with a rally back to the green line (x=47.96). If buyers can pop it above C=49.225, negating the pattern, it would be a constructive way to start the week.  The first Hidden Pivot resistance they would encounter above it lies at 50.030, a minor 'D' target associated with the 45,510 low recorded on October 28. Short there only if you've caught a profitable piece of the approximately $1.75 ride north that remains between Friday's closing price and the target.

Last week's nasty chop barely recovered ground lost as the week began, when GDXJ's canny handlers orchestrated a $17 shakedown on Monday's opening. This was bullish, like all shakedowns, because its purpose was to scare widows and pensioners into selling their shares for relative bargain prices. The subsequent bounce triggered a 'mechanical' short when it reached the green line (x=93.97), but the flat price action that followed looked unpromising as a place to bet the 'don't' line. Stay tuned for updates as GDXJ gives us a clearer picture. You can do this by enabling notifications in your account dashboard and by checking the chat room regularly.

Friday's bounce from the red line (p=108,391) was faintly bullish within a cycle of weakness that has persisted for a month. It would take a push above 118,135 to clear a path to new record highs, albeit with no guarantees. More immediately, the number to beat is 112,207, a Hidden Pivot resistance associated with 118,135. A decisive move through it on first contact would ensure more upside to at least 115,171. Scalpers could get short there if they've profited on the way up.  The foregoing could all be moot by the time you read this, since I am unable to determine whether Tradestation has been updating price data for this vehicle. It usually flows 24/7, but the most recent bar I have right now was recorded a day ago, on Saturday. The pattern I've used is such a good one, though, that I expect it to work out exactly as detailed above.

TLT continues to grind higher, perhaps to deny skeptics the inspiration they need to climb aboard early in this bull market.  It is still in its adolescence, too early to predict which tectonic financial event(s) it is signaling. The trend flouts Trump's persistent efforts to cheapen the dollar, if not to say trash it.  This is a paradox that I've explained here before, to wit: the president's bold leadership has been attracting hordes of T-Bond buyers from around the world, providing an offset to the fiscal and credit excesses Trump believes will lift the U.S. economy.  Grotesquely inflated asset prices belie the fact that, for most Americans, the economy has slipped into a deep, intractable recession.  For the lucky winners, a debt deflation and bear market in stocks awaits those whose net worth has soared mainly due to Fed easing. Regarding TLT, don't pass up an opportunity to buy it 'mechanically' on a pullback to the green line (x=89.85), stop 88.45. ______ UPDATE (Nov 7): A nasty, six-day selloff triggered the 'mechanical' buy I'd suggested at 89.85. The futures continued to fall but didn't stop out the position, since the downtrend went no further than 88.88. Maintain the 88.45 stop-loss for now and hope for a push above 90.66, since that's what it would take to put bulls back in charge. A decline that touches the stop would be the most bearish event we've seen in this vehicle since last April.

Years ago, I received death threats after writing in the San Francisco Examiner that Apple looked like it was about to go under.  That was in 1997, not long after Steve Jobs returned after a 12-year exile. Ironically, he was fired by the man he'd recruited in 1985 to run the show -- cue the hisses and boos -- Pepsi CEO John Sculley. Apple stock at the time was trading below $5, and the company's share of desktops had fallen into a seeming death spiral below 5%. The iPhone was ten years distant, and it appeared that nothing could save the company. How wrong I was! My Examiner column provoked such a firestorm that I recanted its conclusions a few weeks later. Any firm that enjoyed such fanatical support was unlikely to go out of business, I concluded. If only I'd bought a thousand shares at the time. I mention all of this because last week's hit-piece on Apple elicited nary a response -- not in the Rick's Picks 'comments' section, not on websites that feature my work -- not in my own chat room. For all I know, the think-piece went unremarked even in the blogosphere, where the leastmost of our concerns often devolve into bloody battles. Regardless, the premise of my commentary -- that shorting APPL and buying TSLA would prove to be a great trade — is on the record and will be tested by time. Gates Renounces His Religion For now, let's move on to a favorite topic, the fraudulent 'wealth effect' that has seized, if not the proletarian mind, then indeed the minds of the 20% who have most benefited from it. The latest faux-wealth superstars are Amazon and Microsoft.  Shares of the latter jumped $23 last week on earnings news that added about $300

Even with its unusually elongated A-B leg, the pattern shown remains the best source of tradable information we have for the runaway bull market. Price action at p suggests the 7057.50 target is likely to be reached, but until it is decisively breached, we won't concern ourselves with a still higher target at 7531.25 that was identified here earlier. As you can see, the pattern also leaves room for a few scary corrections along the way. The current one will need to come down to the red line (p=6798.88), however, before I suggest buying there 'mechanically'. We usually do these trades on pullbacks to the green line, but in this case, given the steepness of the uptrend, that opportunity may not materialize. The 'textbook' stop-loss for this trade would be at 6712.50, but in practice, we would use a 'camo' trigger to pare down theoretical entry risk by at least 90%. _______ UPDATE (Nov 3, 2:35 p.m.): Today's refreshing plunge has brought greater clarity to the immediate outlook. You can expect the futures to fall to a tradable low at 6681.75. If they rally first to 6885.7, short the crap out of them, stop 6954.00. The latter trade should be done only with a 'camo' trigger that cuts theoretical entry risk to no more than $400 per contract, and only if you've caught a profitable piece of the ride up. ______ UPDATE (Nov 5, 2025): DaBoyz used every sleazy trick in the book to spike ES (see my explanation in the chat room), but they couldn't even goose it to the red line (p=6865.63) before buyers turned tail at day's end. Use the pattern shown, ugly but serviceable, to determine whether They will eventually succeed. A decisive thrust past 'p', especially followed by a close above it, will imply that dangerous

Here's a long-term trading opportunity that seems foolproof: short Apple shares and buy Tesla. Looking out over the next 10 years, this hedge position has the potential to produce outsize profits. How could Apple stumble badly enough to make it work? This is hardly inconceivable. Since Steve Jobs died 14 years ago, the company he co-founded has demonstrated again and again that it couldn't innovate its way out of a wet paper bag. How many more iPhone versions will it take to solve the battery-drain problem? Whatever happened to the Apple car? And how about the device that was going to manage your TV and all of your home entertainment gizmos with a single remote control? Apple's new-products division has repeatedly failed to deliver, and its idea of a technological breakthrough is an iPhone camera with a longer lens and a few million more pixels. As for the AI mania that is raging in the tech sector, the Cupertino-based firm doesn't even have a horse in the race. It wouldn't be the first time an iconic company failed to keep up with the times. Here's a partial list of shockers to remind you how often this has happened: Eastman Kodak, RCA, Intel, Radio Shack, Enron, Woolworth's, Compaq, Digital Equipment Corp. and Polaroid. One could argue that none of these stalwarts achieved Apple's size or market share. True enough, but that hardly guarantees unforeseeable changes in telephony will not blindside Apple. The Pi Phone Tesla and Elon Musk, on the other hand, have the vision not only to see the changes coming, but to bend them toward opportunity. The Pi phone, a potential category killer, is a good example. Musk has repeatedly denied that this device is even on the drawing board, and Wall Street seems to believe him. But why