Rick Ackerman

Last week's nasty short-squeeze stopped just shy of the 6250.38 target I'd drum-rolled, but the selloff that followed quickly reversed an hour before the closing bell. Since Microsoft performed similarly relative to a more quietly disseminated target at 503.69, we should begin the week with at least modest expectations that the stock market has suffered a stroke. However, let's not be too surprised if both vehicles blow past these calculated obstacles, much as they've been doing for years. I strongly doubt this will happen, although staking out a short position will have become more difficult because Friday's top occurred so close to one that only we 'knew' about.  That's debatable, of course, since I myself raised the possibility that every Tom, dick and Harry we compete against has figured out how to 'read' the C-D midpoints of conventional patterns and to trade against them. In any case, if DaBoyz tighten their vise grip on bears' scrota as the new weeks begins, look for the futures to continue on up to at least p2=6469.81. ________ UPDATE (Jul 3, 1:35 a.m. EDT):  Buyers shattered a concrete Hidden Pivot midpoint resistance at 6250.38, clearing a path to at least 6306.25 (60m, A=5993.25 on 6/25, B=6329.00 on 6/27). _______ UPDATE (Jul 3, 2:59 p.m.): The Mother of All Short Squeezes has blown past 6306.25 (see my last update) with such ease that more upside to at least 6429.00 is coming.  That is the 'D' target of a pattern smaller than the one tied to the 6469.81 midpoint Hidden Pivot noted above, but we'll put it out of mind until 6429.00 is achieved and then, presumably, surpassed

[Note:  I've changed the core list of touts, adding some futures contracts in order to provide more tradable opportunities. The new selections will vary from week to week.  RA ]  There are no sure things in the trading world, but the possibilities in the Copper contract shown in the chart look quite enticing. This pattern has already paid off twice with a 'conventional' buy at the green line (x=4.4079), and a 'mechanical' buy on the pullback to the red line (p=4.6983). It can still be milked for two additional trades: 1) a 'long' to d=5.2790; and ) a short when d=5.2790 is achieved (which looks like a foregone conclusion). The latter trade is the more promising, since the chart holds out the possibility of an important top at or near the target. ______ UPDATE (Jul 4): The futures made scant headway last week toward the 5.2790 target noted above. Short there with a tight stop-loss if you've held a long position that made money on the way up. The target is the 'd' terminus of a large 'reverse' pattern begun last winter, so a reversal there could conceivably be an important one, and you should treat it as such.  Here's the chart. _______ UPDATE (Jul 11) Trump's latest tariff threat spiked the price of copper by nearly $1.00 per pound in a single day, blowing past my 5.2790 rally target with ease. I'd suggested shorting there only to subscribers who were long on the way up, but the extreme volatility of the move could have produced results that varied significantly. I'd be interesting in hearing from those who did the trade, since it will sharpen my ability to tailor trades to suit your needs and your appetite for risk.

The grandaddy of all short squeezes (in dollar terms) stopped an inch shy of the 503.69 target we've been using. It looks like 'our' target got front-run on the intraday charts, but the view shown, of the daily chart, 'feels' like the target will be achieved. In any case, we should be ready to get short there, especially subscribers who have made money on the way up using my crazy-bullish targets. This should be done with a tight stop-loss, preferably tied to a small-pattern ('camouflage') trigger, since we've become used to seeing this stock vaporize Hidden Pivots made from inch-thick titanium. I consider this unlikely, but the pattern itself is probably too obvious to give us our top precisely where we want it. ______ UPDATE (Jul 4, 12:55 p.m. EDT): Some subscribers were able to get long just ahead of the stock's engineered, lunatic leap this morning using a Hidden Pivot correction target I'd disseminated earlier.  Visit the chat room for details. ______ UPDATE (Jul 4): Technical signs remain persuasive that the stock will make a potentially important top at or near 503.69, a Hidden Pivot resistance nine months in the making.  This warrants laying out shorts at or near the target -- either via purchasing puts when MSFT gets there; or, preferably, naked-shorting soon-to-expire, at-the-money calls with a tight stop-loss. ________ UPDATE July 9, 6:41 p.m. EDT): The Great Microsoft Waft drilled a .50 caliber hole in my Hidden Pivot target before pulling back unconvincingly. The stock is on its way to at least 516.95 over the near-term. It should be bought 'mechanically' on a retracement to x=495.76, stop 488.69, (60m, A=472.51 on 6/23).

This bottom-fishing recommendation in September Yen uses a proprietary set-up that I call a 'mechanical' trade. The implication is that the entry price and subsequent risk-management are determined automatically, as follows: 1) bid at the green line (x=0.68936) following a pullback from between p (the midpoint Hidden Pivot, 0.69683) and p2 (the secondary Hidden Pivot, 0.70429). If the move goes your way, take off half the position on a rally back up to p=0.69683, and another 25% at p2=0.70429. The remaining 25% can be held for at swing at the fence. Since the initial stop-loss just below c=0.68190 implies entry risk of nearly $1000 per contract, I suggest using a small-pattern trigger, with a commensurately small stop-loss, to initiate the trade when x is hit on the pullback. Generally, however, I will recommend these trades only when I think the odds are favorable for cashing out on a move of at least one level (i.e., from x to p). _______ UPDATE (Jul 4):  Although the futures made a high above p2=0.70429 last week, my recommendation is unchanged: buy a pullback to the green line (x=0.68936) using a small-interval trigger. _______ UPDATE (Jul 12, 12:46 a.m.): The September contract lies within a hair of stopping out the position detailed above for a $934 loss. If this happens, I will publish a new trade shortly thereafter so that we can  move on. _______ UPDATE (Jul 14): A flaccid move lower stopped out the position.

Sellers savaged the 3313.20 midpoint support with such ease last week that the futures are likely to continue down to at least p2=3231.60. And if they fail to get a strong bounce from that Hidden Pivot, expect the correction to hit D=3150.00. An additional possibility is that the turn will come from near the middle of the gap between p and p2, or between p2 and D. Unfortunately, the only way one can trade that scenario with risk tightly controlled is to watch for the turn on a chart of every small (i.e., one- or two-minute) bar chart. And here's one more possible bottom-fishing opportunity for Pivoteers who know how to craft a low-risk trigger: 3253.30, a voodoo number. ________ UPDATE (Jul 2, 1:19 a.m.) The futures opened on a gap down to 3250.50 on Sunday afternoon, triggering a long entry at 3257.60. (The 'reverse' used to fashion the trigger can be found on the 30-min chart, where a=3266.50 on 6/27 at 9:00 a.m.) The pattern, the only one available, could not have produced a losing trade, but it triggered at a time of day when relatively few would have been watching. I have not established a tracking position because no one reported getting long.

The pattern shown is gnarly enough to give us high-confidence trades every step of the way. It has yielded two profitable trades so far: a conventional short from x=36.233, and a so-far moderately profitable long from p=35.695.  If sellers smash through p, you can use a reverse-pattern trigger to play a likely continuation down to at least p2=35.158. You can bottom-fish there if reversing a profitable short position; then place a tightly stopped bid down at D=36.620 for an eventual relapse. That would be the most appealing trade of the three proffered herein.

Is this rally for real? We'll probably have our answer this week, since this vehicle will either vault above the 'external' peak at 88.21 (see inset), or it will chicken out and pull back to form a distinctive low before taking a running start. The first scenario would be more bullish, but the second would be no disqualifier. In either case, we'll monitor minor ABCD retracements, since they should not reach 'D'  if the rally is going to continue.  Correspondingly, ABCD rallies of minor degree should easily surpass p midpoints, and even D targets, for the bull to remain healthy. These rules should hold true even for patterns that play out in an hour or less on the one-minute chart.  FYI, the most immediate target for a tradable pullback low is 86.42 (assuming 88.16 is not exceeded first; that would shift the target higher). _______ UPDATE (Jul 2, 1:38 a.m. EDT): Buyers easily surpassed the external peak at 88.21, creating a fresh impulse leg and clearing the way for a new leg up to 88.86.  This ETF proxy for long-term Treasurys is rising because foreign money has been flowing copiously into the U.S. Trump has put America into ascendance, and the trend is just getting rolling. It helps that Europe is a basket case.

I've raised the target slightly, to 109,344 to correct a small error in one of my coordinates. If you trade Bitcoin, please know that I am still quite confident the target will be achieved. It also promises to deliver a high-odds short, a trade I am recommending especially to those of you who have made money with my target on the way up. If you do the trade and BTC reverses from our number, be sure to nail down a partial profit on a relatively small move. The remainder of your position can be held for more slippage to 104,191 or even lower. An additional trade possibility using this pattern would be to get long 'mechanically' on a pullback to p=104,191, stop 102,474.  _______ UPDATE (Jun 29, 8:57): This is a bloody damned nightmare! Tradestation keeps fiendishly shifting my coordinates, changing not only the targets and Hidden Pivot levels, but also the recommended trades. Each time, I've had to revise not only the text, targets and instructions, but the chart as well. To make matters worse, my laptop has an electrical grounding problem that just erased the most recent revision/update of this tout. I have corrected everything above, including the chart, for the fourth time, so please take note of this. _______ UPDATE (Jun 30, 9:58 a.m. EDT): With a certified IQ of 68, Bitcoin is playing hard to get. You'll have noticed already that this morning's top missed my 109,344 target by a whopping 0.4%. The shortfall denied us an excellent opportunity to get short, but new possibilities are a dime a dozen in this vehicle. The next lies at 106,291, where you can place a 'mechanical' bid, stop 104,680. The midpoint Hidden Pivot, p=107,900, would be a good spot to take a partial profit, but the trade is based

The S&Ps and Nasdaq hit record highs last week, a surreal milestone that only the Wall Street toadies at Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal who fabricate the news could take seriously.  These are the same folks who bestowed the name 'Magnificent Seven' on a bunch of high-flying stocks whose short-squeeze histrionics qualify them for membership in a stock-market Hall of Shame. Portfolio managers, who surely know better, are go-along buyers at these heights and will remain so until a tsunami of redemptions bends them to the impending reality of massive deflationary write-downs when the Everything Bubble bursts. That reality darkened last week with news that the U.S. economy shrunk at an annualized rate of 0.5 percent in the first quarter.  Perennially giddy investors would seem to be betting either that the recession that probably already has begun will be short, or that the statistic itself is a meaningless outlier caused by the world-class uncertainties of Trump's tariff policies. A popular explanation for the staying power of the bull market against a backdrop of global storm clouds, geopolitical mayhem and economic sclerosis is that AI will save us from...everything. As the story has it, artificial intelligence will boost worker productivity, improve outcomes from brain surgery, make steering wheels obsolete, turn $20-an-hour paralegals into Clarence Darrows, and lay to rest the arguments of Talmudic scholars. In unfortunate reality, the driving force behind AI is its ability to put people out of work, particularly white-collar employees whose jobs have been untouched so far by robotics. Can Joe Six-pack Deliver? That raises the question of how lunatic-sector companies that have invested trillions of dollars in AI development, and who say they plan to invest much, much more, can ever hope to recoup their money, let alone multiply it voluminously as they seem to