Rick Ackerman

DaBoyz goosed stocks on Friday as investors took a day off from pondering the darkening implications of high interest rates.  Bad news can sometimes take a back seat to the technical forces that drive shares willy-nilly, and this was one of those days. It did not alter the likelihood that the futures will eventually fall to the 3956.25 target shown once investors return to their senses. If Friday's fake rally hits x=4503.00, that would trigger a 'mechanical' short, so stay tuned to the chat room and/or email 'Notification' if you'd like actionable guidance in real time. _______ UPDATE (Oct 12, 8:30 p.m.):  The short-squeeze countertrend in ES may have run its course with today's bull-trap high on the opening bar. 

AAPL's handlers milked Friday's cluelessness for all it was worth, which turned out to be not much. The rally got past the first of three tightly spaced 'external' peaks going back to early September, meaning the move is not yet impulsive on the daily chart.  A print at 180.31 would do the trick, but we should remain skeptical until such time as that happens. If the rally hits x-183.67, that would trigger a 'mechanical's short, stop 189.99, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. _______ UPDATE (Oct 12, 8:42 p.m.): If this vicious short squeeze hits x=183.67 tomorrow it will likely be the rally's last gasp, and we'll want to short it. Stay tuned to the chat room and be prepared for guidance via email toward day's end, since getting a good price on put options could be tricky.

Friday's rally was impulsive on the hourly chart and the best we've seen in a week. However, if bulls meant business, they would have taken out the 1849.30 peak recorded on October 3 to complete a hat-trick of 'priors'. Instead, they stopped a hair short of it, presumably too out-of-breath for a final-hour sprint to the finish line. We should give them the benefit of the doubt nonetheless, since the shallow correction off the intraday high suggests that at least somewhat higher prices are coming.  My advice is to keep your expectations low until we've seen how the rally interacts with a couple of minor Hidden Pivot resistances. _______ UPDATE (Oct 12, 8:55 p.m.): A sharp rally reversed just as sharply this morning when the regular session began, but not before buyers had pushed the futures above some external peaks recorded at the end of September. This generated a bullish impulse leg on the hourly chart, shortening the odds of another leg up once the correction has run its course.

Silver did some agonized basing last week, all of it beneath a Hidden Pivot 'D' support at 21.38.   Too late and too deep to save the day?  We'll give the rally a week to develop and the temporary benefit of the doubt, but it would need to push above Sep 29's spike high at 23.80 to even hint that bulls may have regained the momentum of 2020. A monthly close above 26.67 would likely clinch it, however, since that's a key 'midpoint resistance on the weekly chart (A=11.640 in March 2020.)

The monthly chart offers a sobering perspective on what it would take to put GDXJ back on the bullish track it rode to $66 in 2020. This gold vehicle has been mucking around in no man's land ever since it tripped a theoretical buy signal at x=37.41 in 2014. The 49.02 midpoint Hidden Pivot will be a crucial threshold, but it lies 54% above, so there's no point in thinking about it now. A more realistic number is 33.79, a tick above a small but technically significant look-to-the-left 'external' peak recorded on September 25.

The chart shown in the inset is too clear and compelling to suggest TLT will somehow avoid falling all the way to the 80.84 target. Yes, important turns have been known to occur midway between p2 and D, especially in too-obvious patterns that have attracted a large following. But the impressive weight of the downtrend over the last two months would seem to argue against a turn occurring without bulls having done their full penance.  Look for more slippage in October, but be ready to back up the truck to buy 'em with a tight stop-loss if and when the target is achieved.

The last push wasn't strong enough to get the futures to the 98.72 target (a presumptive weigh-station enroute to the $117 target of a larger pattern featured in last week's commentary). However, the thrust in early September that impaled a midpoint resistance at 81.42 was sufficiently powerful to suggest November crude will head up to the target once this correction has run its course. To get a precise handle on trend strength, I'll suggest tracking a red-line 'mechanical' buy at 81.42 that would take a 75.65 stop-loss. If the trade makes (hypothetical) money with a move to at least p2, it would shorten the odds of a further move to D=98.72. If not, I'll need to adjust the odds for a blowoff to $117.

The uptrend easily exceeded the 106.84 rally target given here last week, so I am presenting a longer-term view with a much more ambitious objective at 124.72. More immediately, however, there's a Hidden Pivot midpoint resistance at 112.16 that we can use as a minimum upside projection for the near term. As always, if buyers surpass it easily, that would portend more upside to at least p2=118.44, and thence to the D target itself.

The massive terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel over the weekend will unsettle the geopolitical world for the foreseeable future. The economic implications are potentially too grave to be treated merely as a tradeable event; investors should instead be thinking about safeguarding capital. Will the price of crude spike to $117 or higher, as predicted here last week? A chart supporting that conclusion appears in retrospect to have been prescient.  However, I doubt the $117 price will be hit until the global supply of oil has actually been curtailed. Hezbollah's entry into the war could cause this to happen overnight. They've been firing rockets at strategic targets in Israel, a provocation that threatens to unleash a retaliatory response frightening to imagine.  Electromagnetic pulse (EMP), for one. The use of a pulse weapon would amount to Hiroshima without the body count, forever altering the way war is conducted. Cities, regions or even nations could go dark instantly, transported back to the Stone Age when everything powered by electricity ceases to work. Whatever happens, the possibilities are too complex, and potentially too disastrous, for investors to handicap. These all-too-interesting times have become still more interesting, leaving all of us at the mercy of the news as the holiday season approaches.