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Rates on the Ten Year have receded from a high-water mark two weeks ago of 4.48%, a threshold that came close to throttling mortgage activity with a move above 7%, as well as all other forms of debt financing. It's difficult to predict at the moment how much more relief borrowers will get, but T-Notes seem likely to fall to at least 4.18% from a current 4.32%. If they touch that Hidden Pivot, any bounce would presumably be merely corrective, since it would follow the creation of a bearish impulse leg via a penetration of March 17's important, 41.89 low. ______ UPDATE (April 18): No change, since the analysis and forecast above remain on-target.

GDXJ popped last week to within an inch of a longstanding target at 133.49, and although it did not quite reach it, price action was sufficiently robust to imply that a new, more ambitious target at 139.49 is now likely to be achieved. It is derived from a lower point 'a' within a larger structure that allows running room to as high as 150.33. First things first, however, so we'll keep our focus on the pattern shown for trading purposes. I don't often recommend 'mechanical' buying at the red line, here 121.17, but in this case it looks worth a try.  A 115.07 atop-loss would apply. _______ UPDATE (Apr 17): Bulls achieved solid gains last week, although without dipping to our niggardly bid at 121.17. The forecast provided above remains viable.

It is neither bulls nor bears who move the markets, but crooks, mostly. Spectacular but fleeting rallies draw nearly all of their buying power from panicky short covering that is easily triggered and deftly harvested. I have previously discussed this phenomenon, which is most visible when stocks take unseemly leaps at the opening bell. Although few shares will have changed hands in the gaps this creates on charts, it effectively fattens the bank accounts of everyone who held stock before the leap. How do the thieves (aka 'broad-tossers'; see photo above) who control the markets do this trick? First, in order to deplete sellers, they pull their bids in the wee hours of the morning. When there is no news of special interest, stocks will tend to drift lower, especially if there are no significant buyers on the way down. The trend will begin to feed on itself as shareholders grow uneasy. If Wall Street's Wharton-educated crooks have orchestrated the heist properly, a selling crescendo will cause stocks to bottom about 30 to 60 minutes before the start of the regular session. Then, with sellers exhausted and no offers in sight, it is bears who will start to grow anxious.  Their increasingly urgent bids to close out short positions will continue to accumulate as the opening approaches. It is then that the Masters of the Universe, mainly specialists licensed to maintain orderly markets, but also to steal from amateurs, will spring the trap, pulling their offers to reset prices to a level that can satisfy pent-up demand. That price will often be well above the previous day’s close. Voila! Instant new $$ billions for the white-collar carnies who operate the world's bourses.  Why Stocks Idled The foregoing helps explain why stocks did nothing on Friday. Until a few months ago,

June Gold finished the week with a lackluster performance that nonetheless left intact the bullish pattern shown, with a 5144.00 target. The closing price was about midway along the length of a large range that stretched from 4580 to 4825. That seems excessive and could have pleased no one, but it was not especially bearish even though the futures finished the session with a $114 loss. Looking just ahead, a pullback to the green line (X=4382.40) would trigger an appealing 'mechanical' buy, stop 4128.00.

Two strong rallies last week improved the look of the daily chart, with a 133.49 target that now looks all but certain to be achieved. Thursday's rigged plunge to an intraday low at 116.13 was quickly recouped, as we might have expected in a healthy bull market. It triggered a 'mechanical' buy at the red line, which confirms the bullish outlook for this ETF, a proxy for the shares of gold exploration companies. If GDXJ were to relapse to the green line (x=110.53), be ready with a bid there and a 102.87 stop-loss.

Did you fade the Dow’s 1100-point rally on Tuesday, or the nearly 500-point follow-through the next day like I told you to? I’d written here a few weeks ago that shorting into strength these days offers the best odds bears have gotten in decades. Stocks had spent four months building an obvious top, and finally, there it was, a precipitously weakening market staring us down just as the U.S. joined Israel in a war against Iran. Usually Wall Street loves nightly footage of an enemy's buildings getting blown to smithereens by F-35s. The fighter jets cost $100 million apiece, and maintenance and operational costs can add another $300 million to that. But this war has another cost, and it's not the 'good' kind: a huge leap in the price of crude oil and natural gas. Investors go to sleep every night praying something will happen soon to ease the situation. It has pushed gas prices as high as $6 a gallon in California and is threatening to send already steep increases in the price of everything else out of control. The graph says Wall Street ought not get its hopes too high for quick relief, since crude looks like it could rise to the sky before quotes settle back to a more normal $70 or so someday. But how will Wall Street react if prices reach the $125-a-barrel target in the graph, or maybe even higher? Actually, buyers have shown unmistakable signs of mental illness, but with a seemingly benign twist. Before Tuesday, the broad averages had lurched both ways on a hair trigger, moving inversely with every blip up or down in the price of crude. But on Tuesday they did something so bizarre that no one could have predicted it. With oil up a few dollars, stocks went

It took the futures several days to get off the launcher following the 'buy' signal noted here a week ago, but by Friday they were on their way to an all but certain rendezvous with the 104.94 target shown. Because investors are obsessed with oil's every move, we can infer that stocks will continue to fall  as energy jitters ratchet higher. The target pattern is very well-formed for reasons I won't go into here, but that means D can be shorted with the tightest possible stop.  Please note that a decisive move through this Hidden Pivot resistance would open a path to as high as 125.48 over the near term, or even to 178.89, a target broached here earlier.

Microsoft was diddling an important Hidden Pivot support at 355.42 on Friday when bulls were likely saved by the bell. That's because any slippage beneath this 'secondary' support would portend more punishment down to as low as 332.67, the maxed-out 'D' target of the conventional pattern shown. Both numbers have been theoretically in play since mid-February, when  sellers first drove the stock down to the green line (x=400.93).  Because we treat MSFT as our #1 bellwether for the aging bull market, the implications of the stock's easy breach of p=378.18, the midpoint Hidden Pivot, are fraught with significance.  If the stock is going to reverse from here, it will signal it via a booster-stage rally of  7.84 points. However, if the bounce comes off a low beneath 352 (or so), we shouldn't trust it completely. _______ UPDATE (April 1, 10:23): Microsoft is being manipulated higher the old-fashioned way, with short-squeeze gaps on opening bars.  That is why the stock came down so far in the first place, and it will surely do so again, falling to the 332.67 target mentioned above. First, though, it looks likely to achieve will achieve a minimum 387.92 with this short-squeeze rally.  A pullback to 364.42 would trigger a 'mechanical' buy, stop 356.57. (Did you know that the 'Last Price' given above corresponds to the price at which the stock was trading when this update was published?  That is true for all of my updates.) 

Five days of tedium could not push April Gold impulsively past the small but significant (i.e., 'look-to-the-left') peak at 4616.30 shown in the chart. That could change for the better with just a small leap, but until it happens there is no reason to give bulls the benefit of the doubt. However, just a little weakness could bring a test of a midpoint Hidden Support at 4282.90 that is associated with a 'D' target at 3964.70 (60-min, A=4736.30 on March 20).  The higher number is where a reversal should occur if bulls are ready to take charge again following a month-long slide from 5434, but either Hidden Pivot can be bottom-fished provided you understand how.  A side note: Bullion has sagged since the start of the war with Iran, but why? Turkey's behavior may hold some answers. Although it has been one of the world's most aggressive sovereign buyers of gold over the past decade, it sold or swapped about 60 tons of gold worth $8 billion in two weeks after the start of the war. Reportedly, this was to support a disinflation strategy that relies on a stable lira. ______ UPDATE for JUNE Gold (March 31, 7:07p.m. ET): The futures have stalled precisely at a 4709,70 'd' target, but a breakout would clear a path to 4890.10, and thence to 5144.00. That last Hidden Pivot should offer precisely tradeable resistance, but its decisive penetration would announce that bulls are back in force.