Rick Ackerman

With TLT poised for a breakout, I've lowered my target for rates on the 10-Year Note to 4.094%.  The pattern is pretty nutty but still good enough for government work. That means D can be bought with a tight stop, using whatever vehicle you favor for trading the swings in long-term rates. Also, a decisive penetration of the Hidden Pivot support would imply rates are likely to fall even further. Could this indicate a recession is imminent? We'll worry about that after we've seen interest rate bears -- i.e., those who expect yields to fall -- interact with the support.

Any short attempted from the 6109.00 rally target we were using would have made money, even if tightly stopped, since the futures fell 20 points after topping on Friday at 6111.00.  I did not establish a tracking position, however, because no one mentioned having done the trade. Now, if buyers close this gas-bag above 6111.00 for two consecutive days, expect more upside to the 6219.00 target shown in the thumbnail chart. Trade with a bullish bias until such time as the target is reached, then use a 49.50-point trigger interval to tell you when to get short. A 'camouflage' trigger will be necessary, since conventional-entry risk would be $10,000 on four contracts.

The chart shows two invisible impediments that could trip up bulls this week. The first lies at 446.62, the D target of a conventional pattern begun from 400 in early September. The second is a trendline resistance from a head-and-shoulders pattern that will come in around 455. Together, these potential rally-stoppers represent thick layers of supply between current levels and July's record 468. The oddity is that until July MSFT had been leading the market higher. Is it about to resume that role after underperforming lunatic-sector stocks for the last several months? We should be ready for this possibility in any event, so stay tuned for updates in the days ahead. _______ UPDATE (December 12, 10:45 a.m.): A diabolically sick time for MSFT to be short-squeezing higher just when the lunatic sector is coughing and wheezing itself to death. One could almost believe the chimpanzees who purport to 'manage' money actually do meet in a smoke-filled room to plot each gratuitous, stupid sector rotation. If the stock hits 460, I'll throw in the towel on that promising head-and-shoulders pattern that has perfectly defined and controlled the stock's ups and downs for the entirety of 2024.

The weekly chart I posted last week set a high bar for bulls. I've downsized this week to the hourly chart, which shows TLT about to test the resistance of a Hidden Pivot midpoint at 94.64. The rally has come far enough since November's sub-90 low to warrant the benefit of the doubt. As always, a two-day close above the red line or a decisive penetration of it would imply more upside to at least p2=97.18 or even to d=99.72).

Gold served up a second consecutive week of slop, making it difficult to guess what's on the minds of the thieves who manipulate it for a living (legally and with the Guvmint's complicity, of course).  However, enduring uptrends tend to produce relative weak countertrends, and that describes this one so far. It has twice penetrated to Hidden Pivot midpoint support at 2647.90, but without sending the futures down to the pattern's 2605.30 target. They could still get there, but bears might be drained of energy by then. Alternatively, a pop through C=2690.50 would signal a resumption of the long-term bull trend. Worst case: a two-day close beneath 2617.50, portending more slippage to as low as 2487.00 (daily chart, A= 2826.00 on 10-31-24).

Last week's slight penetration of Nov 19's external high at 32.03 was bullish, although not very. It generated a weak impulse leg on the daily chart that implies any retracement this week that holds above 30.095 would be corrective and therefore a 'buy'.  A further push up to p=32.483 would certainly call for a tightly tightly tightly tightly stopped short, presumably with a 'camo' trigger fashioned from the 5- or 15-minute chart. My worst-case target is 29.160, a back-up-the-truck number for those of you who have been waiting since early November for a better buying opportunity (daily chart, a= 33.76 on 5-29-24).

Skittish about the stock market's manic climb?  Consider moving some of your savings into T-bills, which are currently yielding around 4.25%. You could do worse. Some of my friends are reluctant to take e ven a little money off the table because 2024 was such an incredible year for them.  One is a retired lawyer who racked up a nearly $500,000 gain in Nvidia.  She sold enough shares to buy a condo in Palm Beach, but her portfolio is otherwise unchanged and showing a return of about 40% for the year. She and her financial advisor are confident her portfolio will do equally well next year. Both of my siblings had a similar experience, but they have since moved most of their nest eggs into Treasury bonds and bills.  It has been an extraordinary year for them, and for millions of Baby Boomers who owned stocks, real estate or both. Who could blame them for thinking that the bull market begun in 2009 might have another year or two left in it? On the other hand, valuations are at their highest levels ever, and a real estate downturn seems all but certain because mortgage rates are stuck at levels too high to attract first-time buyers. And few would deny the stock market is out of its mind, a beast on steroids; we all sense this in our bones. Consider the way speculators have shrugged off ominous tariff news. Trump has threatened our two biggest trading partners, Mexico and Canada, with protectionist levies that would punish U.S. auto manufacturers in particular and cause grocery prices to surge anew. The President-elect also seems hell-bent on implementing immigration restrictions that would tighten the supply of workers, particularly for unskilled jobs. He's Bluffing, Right? Toward the end of the Roaring Twenties, when Congress was

Let's hope Musk and Ramaswamy have been paying close attention to David Stockman's ten-part series on how to cut the U.S. budget before America spends its way into bankruptcy. Stockman was Reagan's budget director in 1981-85 and eminently qualified to spell out the tough reforms needed to force the U.S. to live within its means. He is no fan of Trump, to put it mildly, but he sees the Musk/Ramaswamy 'DOGE' project as America's last chance to get spending under control. Musk famously asserted during the campaign that he could cut $2 trillion annually from a total federal budget of around $6 trillion. Although we've come to expect big things and even the impossible from Musk, in this case, even with the intrepid Ramaswamy aboard, DOGE may have bitten off more than it can chew. Ironically, it is Stockman's long, detailed list of cuts that makes Musk's goal seem farfetched if not impossible. Stockton admits that eliminating nearly every U.S. department and agency you can think of, and laying off more than half-a-million government employees at the outset, would scarcely dent deficit spending that's been pushing the national debt toward $40 trillion at a rate of more than $3 trillion per year. The list of 16 agencies Trump should axe as soon as he takes office in January includes the FBI, DEA, BATF, NHTSA, Legal Services Corp. and the Department of Education.  Additionally, says Stockman, DOGE should shoot for 50% staff reductions in these fat cows: the SEC (2,250 workers, for savings of $360 million); FCC (750 workers, for savings of $120 million: FAA (22,500 workers, for savings of $3.6 billion); IRS (41,500 workers, for savings of $6.64 billion); National Labor Relations Board (800 workers, for savings of $130 million); Office of Personnel Management (1,250 staff, for savings of $314

The pattern shown has worked perfectly so far, signaling a winning short from the red line and a theoretically juicy payoff from 'mechanically' bottom-fishing at the green line (x=6000.44). That means it's equally likely to work for getting short at D=6109.00 with a tight stop.  Shining a spotlight on the trade on my front page could slightly queer the pattern's voodoo magic, so I'd suggest using a reverse-pattern trigger of small degree (i.e., sub-5 minute) to execute the trade. Because the first contact with p=6042.63 on the way up did not impale this Hidden Pivot resistance, there can be no ironclad guarantee the target will be reached, although it seems likely.