This proxy for gold exploration stocks has had quite a run-up this year. Most recently it exceeded a 72.23 target first disseminated here a long time ago. To come up with a higher projection, I had to shift the point 'A' low from 2020's watershed bottom at 19.62 to the 16.87 low recorded in January 2016. This allows GDXJ a little more running room, but not much. The pattern is extremely gnarly, but it is also the only logical extension possible. That is why you should pay close heed if the uptrend continues into August.
TLT's performance over the last four years has grown increasingly painful to watch, and there are no clear signs this is about to end. In fact, a little more downside remains to complete the pattern shown to D=80.84. Alternatively, I'd need to see an uncorrected thrust above both of the circled peaks to infer that an important reversal is under way. Barring that, we should assume that more downside to at least 80.84 awaits; or if any lower, to 74.79 (! ) (Weekly chart, A= 108.87 on 4/7/23)
You've got to hand it to DaBoyz for reviving Apple as a 'wealth'-effect dynamo. The company couldn't innovate its way out of a wet paper bag, and it doesn't even have a horse in the AI race. And yet, the stock recently lurched back to life, emulating those two bull-market superstars, Microsoft and Nvidia. Indeed, any investor who held shares in the company last week, including Vanguard, BlackRock, Berkshire Hathaway and approximately 25,000 other lucky investors, became significantly wealthier on paper without lifting a finger. Rising sharply on gap openings last Wednesday and Thursday (see chart), and on a nasty short-squeeze Friday for good measure, the Cupertino-based seller of iPhones added nearly $500 billion to the world's store of illusory wealth. The Element of Surprise As I've explained here before, almost no stock changes hands on gap openings, and what little actual buying occurs comes almost entirely from short covering. In this instance, AAPL ended last Tuesday's session at around $203 per share. Then news came out after the close that they had sold quite a few more iPhones than benighted analysts had expected. It didn't matter that the flurry of phone-buying could have been a one-time effect caused by consumers trying to get ahead of new tariffs. All that was needed to goose AAPL skyward was the element of surprise. After the earnings beat, the stock's clever handlers lost no time working their levitation scam. By simply pulling their offers overnight and on Wednesday's opening, they enabled panicked bears to do all the lifting into a supply vacuum. Rotation Is Costless It's easy to underestimate the crooks who ply this game. Although we know they routinely rotate money from one sector to the next to push stocks higher with relatively small outlays, we sometimes overlook that they can top
I'd said odds were remote that The Mother of All Tops is in, but last week's dive from just above a middling Hidden Pivot target has altered the picture. The move was impulsive, since it breached two 'external' lows on the daily chart. Moreover, it is bearish that the futures rallied only weakly after dipping slightly beneath the moree important low, a 6241.00 bottom recorded on July 16. Now it's a 300-point fall to the next structural support, a whipsaw bottom at 5959 recorded on June 23. That's where the futures should be presumed headed if selling picks up steam this week, as I expect. Any rally would be a tempting short, so stay tuned to the chat room for timely guidance.
The stock market is priced for perfection in a grotesquely imperfect world. Trump provided a fleeting respite by showing us how the Art of the Deal works in trade negotiations. Fox News rightly rubbed the legacy media’s face in his success while the President took a half-dozen victory laps to muted global applause. This may turn out to be more than he deserves, since no one can predict what will come of the new taxes that have been imposed on global trade. Because eggheads, editorialists and Bloomberg’s talking heads have no deep understanding of tariffs, here’s an interesting thought from someone who does — Reagan budget director David Stockman. The point he makes is too basic to ignore: If capitalism is truly free and functioning, he points out, America doesn’t need a dealmaker in the White House. Affordability is our big problem anyway, as the nation’s erstwhile middle class continues to sink into poverty. Nearly everything we buy has become not merely expensive, but too expensive, particularly big-ticket items like homes and automobiles. The average price of a used car hit $32,000, up from $23,000 just three years ago. It can cost $400 or more to take a family to a ballgame, where a hot dog and a beer are now $25. The $9.99 breakfast special in Las Vegas has risen to $29.99. And if shrinkflation at the supermarket gets any worse, we’ll be buying staples by the gram rather than the ounce. Putin’s Hole Cards Inflation will not be the worst of our problems if the Ukraine war takes a turn for the worse. Putin is Trump’s only equal in global power and influence, and he will not bend to Trump’s ultimatums like the pantywaists
I've raised the bar somewhat so that we don't get suckered by yet another failed rally. I'm already on record as saying the bear market ended, possibly with October's 82.42 low. But I'd feel more confident about this if TLT takes an uncorrected leap above the two peaks shown. If it relapses instead, I would still expect no worse than a marginal penetration of the October low, followed by a sustained rally whose steepening pitch will leave little doubt that an important trend change has occurred.
How are you coping with gold's endless dither? It just entered its fourth month, and there is not much to celebrate. Of course, everyone "knows" it will be moving higher. Just not now. Last week's tout warned subscribers not to get too excited if the futures should take flight, since no rally since April has shown any follow-through. And so it went yet again, with a fleeting surge to nowhere that was reversed just as quickly. Looking ahead, there is a magnetic Hidden Pivot target at 3695 that gold's handlers will not be able to put off indefinitely. Keep it in mind as we endure the anomie of markets that have been rigged by Hamptons capos for silent running.
Although the biggest players in the tech world have sunk trillions of dollars into AI research and development, none of them has made a dime. Will they ever? That’s a reasonable question, considering no one really knows how AI will reshape the economic world, other than eliminating many millions of jobs. The investment frenzy continues to gain momentum nonetheless, recalling the South Sea Bubble of the ‘roaring’ 1720s. A widely quoted item from that era was a prospectus for a company claiming to be carrying on "an undertaking of Great Advantage but no one to know what it is." One could argue that it’s different this time, but is it really? Quite possibly not, considering that Bitcoin, a currency with no intrinsic value, has increased in value from an initial $0.003 in 2010 to a current $118,000. These are crazy times, and nothing drives people crazier than the prospect of thousandfold returns on their savings. However, before you plunk down your own hard-earned dollars on a flight of fantasy, check out my recent interview on Howe Street. (Note: I make an exception for Nvidia shares, for reasons that are explained in the interview.)
The stock market continues to waft higher with the riskless predictability of loaded dice. DaBoyz have trained their firepower on just a few high-flyers, chiefly Microsoft and Nvidia, in order to squeeze the broad averages skyward with an absolute minimum of capital. I've explained here before in exhaustive detail how this carnival midway trick is performed, beginning with a short-covering gap on most mornings that precipitously reverses overnight selling after it has dried up. Putting aside the fakery and tedium of the seemingly endless bull market, along with the Epstein saga and Trump's tiresome tariff antics, the most interesting story in the news last week was Tulsi Gabbard's tweets implicating Barack Obama in treason. Although Biden, frequently photographed slurping an ice cream cone, would seem to have a lock on Worst President Ever, it is Obama who will go down in history as the leader who did America the most harm, all of it deliberate. A Years-Long Coup Treason is not too strong a word here, although we shouldn't get our hopes too high that his punishment, assuming he is charged and convicted, will fit the crime. When he summoned Comey, Clapper and Brennan to the Oval Office on December 9, 2016, they had already stated publicly there was no evidence Russia had interfered in the 2016 election. Despite this, said Gabbard, Obama directed them to fabricate a new narrative asserting that the Russians had in fact worked behind-the-scenes to help Trump beat Hillary. The three men and their staffs proceeded to reverse their findings, said Gabbard. Then, two weeks before Trump took office, they "unveiled the new, Obama-directed politicized assessment, a gross weaponization of intelligence that laid the groundwork for a years-long coup intended to subvert President Trump's entire presidency." Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said she has
Microsoft's deftly engineered short squeeze minutes before the opening bell on Friday slightly exceeded the 516.95 target we'd been using to stay confidently on the right side of a heavily overextended trend. The top was fleeting, volumeless and not just a little sleazy, creating a possible top that could endure for a while. Let's use the green line (x=483.95) as a minimum downside target for now. If it is touched, that would imply more downside to at least p=453.26 (the red line, a midpoint Hidden Pivot support).
