Silver has been engulfed by tedium, almost too painful to watch. A breakdown below the sawtooth action of the last several weeks should be presumed headed to the red line, a midpoint Hidden Pivot support at 30.200. A tightly stopped buy there would be warranted if you feel like bottom-fishing, but it could take a while before the futures signal the trade. Neither bulls nor bears could be very happy at the moment, which is usually Mr Market's cue to deliver more of the same.
I’ve supported Trump since his first term, but my hopes for his success peaked a month ago when a panic-induced plunge in the S&P 500 reversed almost precisely from a 4820 target I’d sent out to subscribers. I saw this as the surprisingly quick end to a bear market that had only just begun in February. If my hunch turned out to be correct, this meant America would experience no recession, and the tariff wars would blow over without causing any lasting harm to the global economy. So far, the prediction — still an outlier, for sure — looks good, at least on paper. The chart shows how the S&Ps have rallied a Krakatoa-like 1089 points since trampolining in April from within a hair of 4820. The powerful move has somewhat muffled the clamor of TDS sufferers, even if it seems clear by now that nothing will ever bring them around. Meanwhile, dare we hope the radical changes that have set Trump’s agenda will extricate America from a debt trap with no apparent exit? A debt deflation has long seemed inevitable because public and private debts have grown far too large to repay. DOGE Gains Up in Smoke If Trump initially offered a possible way out and seemed enthusiastic about pulling off the impossible, he may have lost too much momentum already to succeed. The DOGE cuts that fired up so many supporters have been voted down by Congress, including by some Republicans, and it took quiet help from the Fed last week to bolster the appearance of strong demand for long-term Treasury paper. Now, if the Supreme Court fails to put the kibosh on birthright citizenship and nationwide injunctions by woke judges, Trump may need a hat-trick of successes in Ukraine, the Middle East and China to rally the
Talking heads, TV pundits and eggheads seem befuddled about where rates on the Ten-Year Note might be headed, but a chart with correctly drawn Hidden Pivot levels offers only clarity. The trend has been higher since May 1, with a rise from 4.12% to a high 4.40%, and although it seems likely rates will go somewhat higher, expect a downward break, perhaps a sharp one, from within the range 4.42%-4.58% [corrected]. The highs might seem scary for those who owe or need dollars, but a subsequent fall to as low as 3.902% should help quell their fears.
The futures did nothing last week to allay suspicions that the no-longer-exciting move off early April's low is just a garden-variety bear rally. Although it exceeded my 5736.00 target by five points, the fact that one needs a microscope to see this on the weekly chart means we should treat the resistance as intact. If buyers get decisively past it, I will be the first to guarantee 5867.00 as a minimum price objective. But we'll remain disciplined for now, and that means bulls must prove their case every step of the way. I may put out a trade in the chat room this week because this vehicle's minor swings are so easy to read. Stay close to the room if you're interested. The trade will likely happen too quickly for an email blast to be of much value, but if I see an opportunity developing lazily, I'll notify everyone.
MSFT wasted a week with its failure to achieve a modest 'conventional' Hidden Pivot target at 450.24. I didn't make the target viewable on this page, even by paying subscribers, because I didn't want to queer its voodoo magic. However, it still looks like a terrific place to attempt getting short with a tightly crafted 'camo' trigger. If you don't know enough about them to fool around, I'll suggest buying a few puts or naked-shorting some near-the-money, soon-to-expire calls when the stock gets within 1.00 of the target. Tie the position to a tight stop-loss, since the trade is likely to work precisely if at all, and be sure to nail down a small partial profit if the opportunity arises. _______ UPDATE (May 15, 5:10 p.m..): The sleazeballs who control this fusion-powered 'wealth-generator' are milking the huge short-squeeze gap from May 1 for all it's worth. MSFT now looks like it will hit 477.45 before DaBoyz run into real resistance. Short there, too, with a stop-loss as tight as 0.20-0.40 cents. For your information, the short I'd recommended above from 450.24 could have produced a quick, juicy gain, since the stock fell to 439.78 on May 12 after topping at 450.59 the same day, just ahead of the regular-session opening.
The dollar's unaccustomed burst of strength last week actually generated some hubris, along with speculation that the bear market begun in late 2022 might be over. Although it's too early to be confident about this, the possibility warrants our attention. The move so far tripped a theoretical buy signal at x=100.43, the green line. It's a strong bet that the uptrend will continue to p=102.93, the midpoint Hidden Pivot, but we'll be better able to judge its strength and durability once we've seen bulls interact with p. A completed move to d=107.94 wouldn't signal an inevitable end to the dollar's 2.5-year dither, but it would put DXY in good position to break out for a run at 2022's high, 114.78.
We should know soon whether Silver's mini-explosion upward, the second in three months, is just another false start. From a Hidden Pivot perspective, the selloff of the last two weeks is not as bearish as it seems. It triggered an attractive 'mechanical' buy on Monday when it touched the green line (x=86.95). This implies that a bounce will reach p=89.91, at least, before it can stop out bulls with a dip beneath c=85.00. Whether it can muster a finishing stroke to d=92.81 depends on how easily buyers penetrate p on the next rally. _______ UPDATE (May 18, 12:50 a.m.): Bulls held on by a hair when TLT dipped last week to a bottom just 20 cents from the 85.00 point 'c' low of the ostensibly bullish pattern detailed above. _______ UPDATE (May 25): TLT popped a wheelie at an 83.66 voodoo support, but don't expect the bounce to get legs. The low occurred just inches shy of a chasm beneath the watershed low recorded in October 2023 at 82.42. It is too obvious a place for a good bottom to form, nor does the dollar much respect 'technical' tops and bottoms. For now, all we can do is watch.
[The S&Ps are losing steam after recouping two-thirds of their 1400-point loss in March/April. The stall near 5700 has left them hovering in the danger zone, just like the U.S. economy. Will it skirt recession? I have my doubts, even if price action on the S&P chart on April 7 led me to speculate that business would continue to hum along. The index had bottomed slightly above an important Hidden Pivot target at 4820, and so it was no stretch to infer that this may have marked the end of the bear market. Without the chart, though, it's hard for me to imagine that America will skate past recession. A real estate crash is coming, and it's only a matter of time before its mounting weight overwhelms whatever miracles people expect from Trump. His tariff announcements, to the extent they can be construed as bullish for stocks, have lost their ability to affect securities markets for more than an hour or two. He did a deal with Great Britain last week, spinning it as the first of many. That story will not distract anyone from the only deal that matters, however -- with China. No one could be optimistic that President Xi Jinping will be an easy touch, so don't be surprised if stocks take a header this week. Meanwhile, the commentary below will continue to run until an S&P breach of 4820 proves my bullish thesis wrong. RA ] *** A word of advice if you’re looking for bankable information on the direction of the economy: tune out the mainstream media’s cavalcade of Trump-deranged bozos and focus on the 4820 target in the SPX chart above. Think of it as Trump’s lucky number, but also a very good place for these all-too-interesting times to find temporary equilibrium. That is
The slimeballs who manipulate this stock for a living made full use of a short-squeeze opportunity when Microsoft announced earnings after Wednesday's close that unsurprisingly surpassed estimates. What could bears have been thinking?? DaBoyz kicked off the celebration with a $40 rally after the close, then worked their criminal magic again on Friday's opening to hoist the stock a further $10. Realize that no stock changed hands during the spectacular first stage of this maneuver, and only a relative handful of shares traded on the second. The result was an approximately $317 billion contribution to the financial realm's gaseous 'wealth effect'. Most of it came in mere nanoseconds, since that's how long it takes to create an enormous gap on a chart. This is a feat that mere bullish buying could never have hoped to achieve. It required mainly the arrant stupidity of shorts, who dependably acted as though the risk of getting blown out of the water was negligible. If I had to guess where MSFT, financialization's chief instrument for adding fake money to the system, is headed, I'd say to xxx.xx. I don't want to queer the bold, Hidden Pivot magic of this number, so I'll post it only in the chat room.
A faint glimmer of hope appeared last week with DXY's subtle poke through the 'd' target of a minor reverse pattern. It isn't much to celebrate, but the fact that the rally even made it to 'D' implies something may have changed, since the last time this modest feat succeeded was almost a year ago. To gauge its significance, we'll need to monitor retracement patterns closely, since they should have trouble exceeding p if the dominant trend has in fact changed. The first in evidence, on the 30-minute chart, not only exceeded p, it topped at the 'd' target of a minor rABC on Friday (a=99.70 on 5/1 at 7:30 a.m.).
