I've returned AAPL to the list, since MSFT's dirge is no longer representative of the animal spirits that have been moving the markets higher. The chart shown leaves room for a possible double top, but I've selected a lower point 'A' in order to project a likely move to new record highs. The move through p=274.76 is not quite powerful enough to guarantee this, but it will offer 80% odds if the stock can close for two more consecutive days above p=274.76. At the point, the secondary Hidden Pivot (p2=290.42) would become my minimum upside objective. If a pullback to the green line (x=259.09) were to occur first, it would offer a stellar opportunity for a 'mechanical' buy, stop 242.00.
I'll spare you the boring details, but the pattern shown, wih a 202.52 target that lies 20% below, has everything I look for. It tripped a conventional sell signal when it touched the green line last Wednesday, and the choppy downtrend since should be presumed bound for a minimum 118.05 over the near term. If that midpoint Hidden Pivot support is easily exceeded to the downside, it would portend more slippage to as low as D=102.52. We'll let price action speak for itself, but take it as a bullish sign if buyers push above C=133.57 before p=118.05 is touched.
[The following commentary was written by Steve Houck,a longtime investor in bullion and knows the markets well. He is also a friend and a former business partner. RA ] Looking at the froth in silver, it became apparent it was time to rotate from overvalued to undervalued once again. Selling precious-metal ETFs like SLV and AGQ meant cash was available for the next trade, but where to go? While silver has been on a relentless tear, the miners have only grudgingly moved higher. Yes, there have been good moves in many of the miners, but quite a few trade with a ball and chain weighing them down in the form of fear. That's because the last two times silver surpassed $50, in 1980 and 2011, it collapsed and went into long, grinding bear markets. Silver mining stocks get caught up in this because the public doesn't believe prices will hold, and that silver will fall back to earth. But what if the new floor is $55 to $70, and not the $15 to $25 range that obtained for decades? This silver run-up is different because it’s about one thing: physical metal. Just look what;s happening: China, the U.S. and the rest of the world are hoarding and trying to secure metals. That puts the miners in the catbird seat, because they produce and control the supply. Their shares, however, are still being priced as though silver were selling in the $20s even though it averaged close to $50 for the entire fourth quarter 2025. The miners wil start to report earnings next week, beginning on February 16. Because many of them will announce blowout earnings, now is the time to capitalize! How to Play It How to play this? Over the last two decades of investing in silver miners, the
A further fall to the 404.67 target would represent at 27% decline since the stock sputtered out in October at 553.72, just an inch shy of new record highs. The pattern doesn't quite qualify as an ominous, island-reversal top, but it doesn't take a chartist to feel the weight of the dome the stock has traced out over the last nine months. The pattern is simple and obvious, but sufficiently compelling for us to infer that MSFT is far more likely to hit D before C=493.50, if it ever does. This is the fourth most valuable company in the world, behind Nvidia, Google, and Apple, implying that the stock's decline has deflated the global 'wealth effect' by a large amount. See this week's commentary (above) for a further discussion of this. _______ UPDATE (Feb 8): The stock has looked so awful that I am substituting AAPL on the 'touts' list. The chart shows a logical path down to D=376.88. The stock can be 'mechanically' shorted at the red line (p=408.24), stop 418.70. ________ UPDATE (Feb 14): We usually do 'mechanical' shorts at the green line, but I made a rare exception this time, recommending that you get short at the red line (p=480.24) with a 418.70 stop-loss. The trade would have produced a loss of $1024 per round lot. Had we shorted at the green line (x=423.92) as is customary, the trade would have worked out nicely, since the stock made a top at 423.68 just ahead of a so-far plunge of $22.67. The 376.99 downside target remains valid in any case and should be used as a minimum objective for now.
The chart is similar to the one I've drawn in Gold, with a 0.625 retracement serving as a target for Silver's breathtaking correction. It came off a record high on Thursday that missed a 122.215 Hidden Pivot target I'd drum-rolled by a millimeter. Friday's bounce left the futures sitting nearly $3 above the 50% line, but if the correction is going to match Gold's, a retracement to 64.18 is needed. Be prepared to bottom-fish there with a 'camo' trigger, since 64.18 is not going to be on the radar of most traders, derived as it is from a low recorded last April that is idiosyncratic, although not obscure. ______ UPDATE (Feb 2, 7:55 a.m.): I've switched the view, since trying to synch the charts of gold and silver grew confusing. This picture affords 'safe passage' to at least d=91.285, a Hidden Pivot that lies $6.80 above. If it shows little resistance, I will adjust by lowering point 'a' to produce a higher target. In the meantime, a pullback to the green line (x=76.221) can be bought 'mechanically' with a 71.190 stop-loss. That implies more than $5000 of entry risk per contract, so the trade is recommended only to subscribers able to craft a 'camouflage' trigger. _______ UPDATE (Feb 4, 10:59 p.m.): The suggested trade racked up a monster profit of $75,320 per contract for anyone who boarded at 76.221 and exited two days later at my target, 91.285. What happened next should not have surprised subscribers: the futures wafted slightly (47 cents) higher, then fell moments later into a hellish dive that took them all the way back down to, so far, 73.415, a tad below the trade-entry price.
TLT has done nothing to alleviate a dismal picture on the long-term charts. I am switching the view this week to a chart of long-term Treasury rates which points toward 5.078%. It would be the first time they've traded above the psychologically important 5% level since July, when a peak at 5.077% was recorded. My gut feeling is that anything that close to last May's watershed 5.153% would be tested and exceeded, putting Trump's plans to stimulate the economy in jeopardy. His lips have been pushing hard against the uptrend in yields, but market forces seem to be winning.
Pity the J-school rookies who are paid to explain why the stock market did what it did on a given day. On Thursday, Microsoft shares lost nearly a half-a-trillion dollars of value. But why? Bloomberg's Evening Briefing called it a 'rap on the knuckles' for the company's huge spending on AI projects that seem increasingly unlikely to pay off. But isn't a rap on the knuckles the way nuns used to deal with minor behavioral lapses in young boys? If so, then Microsoft deserved 40 lashes with a rattan cane. Although the story was treated by the hacks who wrote it as a news event, what it portends is nothing short of financial calamity, reported in daily installments. For it is not just Microsoft that has squandered hitherto unimaginable sums on failing AI projects, but a dozen other corporate behemoths, including lunatic-sector (aka 'Magnificent Seven') stalwarts Amazon, Google, Facebook, Nvidia and Tesla. Analysts have projected total global AI spending of $2.6 trillion across all companies and markets in 2026. Here's where the math gets interesting. Microsoft share of those outlays would be an estimated $140 billion. Investors knocked three times that from the company's valuation last week, while also imploding the world's gaseous 'wealth effect' by a rich but still-invisible multiple. If equal punishment were to be inflicted on the companies planning to spend the $2.6 trillion, the haircut would amount to nearly $8 trillion. That is arguably the approximate size of the AI deflation that lies just ahead, and it will activate a black hole that could double or triple losses in other classes of investible assets. Treasury paper will go bounding in the other direction, finally getting some respect as a safe haven. When to Take Heart Granted, neither the math nor the logic is airtight. But the
Copper and a rotating selection of popular symbols will be replacing Bitcoin on this page, although I will continue to provide timely analysis for Bitcoin on demand in the chat room. The chart shows how copper's price has tripled since bottoming just beneath $2 a pound in March 2020, when covid fears seized the world's machinery. 'Doc' Copper has seemingly done its job since in predicting an upswing in global industrial activity. In particular, it included a surge in demand caused by a worldwide push toward renewable energy and electric vehicles, which require a lot of copper for batteries, charging infrastructure and renewable energy systems. However, copper's ascent has nearly reached a hard target at 6.18 a pound that suggests the bull market may have run its course. Does that mean a global recession-or-worse looms? We will not likely know until a recession is well under way. It is coming eventually, but in the meantime, a bull market that has been galloping along for 16 years should command our respect, if not our unquestioning confidence. If an important top is in at 6.1540 (basis the March contract), it would be corroborated by a pullback that decisively exceeds 5.36. A somewhat higher top would require an adjustment in that number, a Hidden Pivot, so stay tuned.
The mindless herd breathed a collective sigh of relief over the tariff tizzy's latest cliffhanger, celebrating its resolution with a short squeeze up their own wazoos that played out mostly on a single day, Wednesday. The spree left the futures just shy of a 6984.00 target that is nothing special, although its decisive breach would suggest a possible breakout above the range that has asphyxiated the S&Ps since Halloween. More likely is a drop back into the valley, whose floor lies as much as 1400 points below. The 6984.00 target is shortable, but you could also attempt a ride to it, since it is all but certain to be reached. _______ UPDATE (Jan 27, 9:28 p.m.): ES is breaking out, as painful as it is for me to believe. See my comments in the chat room.
DaBoyz took advantage of bearish expectations that had been intensifying since the stock began its long dirge in the final days of October. The rabid short-squeeze pushed MSFT to the top of the list of Friday's percentage gainers. It also slightly pierced a midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance at 469.36 that is associated with a 'D' target at 500.03. Penetration was not sufficient to clinch more upside to the target, nor to guarantee the profitability of a 'mechanical' buy at the green line. (As things stand, it would rate a still-enticing '7.3'.) A bullish trading bias is warranted now, as is the expectation that this behemoth's continuing ascent will add buoyancy to the broad averages and the lunatic sector (aka 'Magnificent Seven').
