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So much for seasonality. Bears were counting on the cyclical fury of autumn to rebuke revelers, but instead it is they who got rebuked, and badly. The stock market's strong rally during the traditionally difficult month of October has left many wondering what it will take to pop the bubble. It is almost invariably a combination of factors that virtually no one has precisely foreseen. But this time, predicting the onset of the bear's inevitable arrival would seem to require a bigger leap of imagination than in the past. For how does a bull market end when it is supported by seemingly unlimited quantities of money ginned up by the central bank? Deliberately tightening credit cannot be the answer, since the Fed understands that this would not only reverse the bull market precipitously, it would also doom pension funds, the Baby Boomers' retirement plans, artificially high real estate prices and a consumer economy already ravaged by the pandemic. The eventual outcome would be a global economy plunged into deepest depression.  This is coming anyway, but don't expect the Fed to set itself up as the obvious cause. And so the game goes on. The money from trees finds its way into the stock market in numerous ways, one of them being corporate buybacks. According to a recent article at Zerohedge, fully 40% of the market's rise can be attributed to this source. Some of the companies that borrow for buybacks are sitting on surplus cash of their own amounting to billions or even tens of billions of dollars. Why use real money, they have concluded, when they can borrow it at near-zero rates by issuing bonds to yield-starved investors?  And so they continue to plow borrowed money into their own shares, driving the shares into outer space without producing a

This morning's lunatic leap has sufficiently exceeded the 85.01 target shown in the inset to imply that significantly higher prices are coming. Here's a chart that shows a bigger-picture objective at 105.08. I'd need to see a more decisive move past p=83.41 and a few consecutive closes above it to be sure, but for the time being we can use p2=94.25 as a minimum upside objective. With pump prices already above $5/gallon in some places, this will not be good news for the transportation sector and for the U.S. economy in general. No one knows what's in the Democrats' 'stimulus' bill (that is very nearly true), but we can only hope there will be gas coupons for every decent American who owns an automobile. ______ UPDATE (Oct 27, 9:02): I jumped the gun with the 105.08 target, since this one at 91.51 would need to be fulfilled first. As the chart shows, 'mechanical' set-ups can be used to get long on a pullback to either p or x. Ask in the chat room if you are unsure of exactly how to do this. The buy at 65.84 on July 23 was about as 'textbook' as these opportunities get. _______ UPDATE (Nov 4, 11:54 p.m.): Crude's usual nuttiness turned psychotic, but this had only a small impact on my technical outlook. You can lower the first rally target to 88.96 while leaving the bigger-pattern targets unchanged. They are not a done deal. ______ UPDATE (Nov 10, 11:36 p.m.): If the futures remain weak, use this pattern to bottom-fish at D=79.80 with a very tight 'camo' stop. _______ UPDATE (Nov 11, 9:52 a.m.): Crude has flunked the weakness test this morning, unable to achieve downside D=79.80. The target remains valid but is less likely to be hit. If you have the opportunity to use

Got guts? Bertie would become a fetching 'mechanical' buy if last week's pullback continues to the red line (p=59,302). My immediate objective thereupon would be p=74,541, with a shot at D=89,780, That last number seems like an excellent prospect to deliver a blow-off top in this vehicle. I will track the trade just to keep the record up-to-date. (I note that only one buy recommendation has gotten stopped out since Rick's Picks began touting bitcoin more than a year ago.)  The stop-loss on the 'mechanical' trade would be at exactly $49,143, implying entry risk of a tad more than $10,000 per unit. We can attempt to whittle it down to perhaps $300-$700 using a 'camouflage' trigger, but that will be possible only in real time. A keen show of interest in the chat room would be needed to enlist my help, since this project could become labor-intensive. _______ UPDATE (Oct 26, 9:12 p.m.): I'll suggest backing away from the red line and putting your bid down at x=44,063, the green line. That is how the conventional 'mechanical' trade is typically set-up, and it's less risky than a red-line entry. If Bertie seems reluctant to come all the way down, we'll deal with that when the time comes. We may attempt another type of entry altogether -- one that wouldn't require so sharp a pullback -- so stay close to the chat room and let me know of your interest if you seek guidance.

The performance of Apple shares has been a reliable harbinger of where greed and hubris would take this seemingly invincible bull market next. Apple is the biggest-cap stock of them all, worth $2.5 trillion, and it has increasingly become a sure thing for institutional investors since bottoming a generation ago below $5. With its broad base of fat-cat stakeholders, the stock has been an ideal market bellwether. More than any other stock, it is responsible for making portfolio managers look like geniuses, and for creating the deception that a U.S. pension system headed for certain disaster in the next bear market is in great shape. This week, however,  we will turn out attention to bitcoin, represented in the chart above by a CME vehicle that tracks best bids and offers for bitcoin in real time across many exchanges.  It could be argued that bitcoin is an even better bellwether than Apple, since it lucidly captures not only the methodical rigging of the investment casino by Wall Street hucksters, but the unmitigated craziness of the players.  They are being cheered on by big banks that surely know better, since bitcoin's supposed value is backed by...nothing.  Without having much actual skin in the game, the banks have been shamelessly talking their book since they conspired to lift bitcoin from pariah status back in March 2020. 'Wayne's World' Nerds This followed a shakeout that would have devastated mainly Wayne's World nerds who were early adopters and traders of bitcoin.  The virtual currency fell from above $10,000 to $3900 before the big boys began to aggressively tout encrypted money as a viable medium for financial transactions. This has yet to happen, in part because cryptocurrencies (although not blockchain technology, which holds enormous promise) offers few advantages over a credit card system that works just

Inflation fears are at a generational peak, pushing our stubbornly unfearful Fed chairman against a wall. He may yet prove right in saying inflation will be transitory, but for reasons that should comfort no one. In the meantime, the U.S. dollar seems resistant to the nervous chatter while Treasury bonds, although struggling for altitude, continue to hold their own. Both are near the middle of their respective trading ranges for the last five years, presumably waiting for more persuasive evidence that the inflation we've seen to date is about to go out of control. An obvious reason this has yet to occur is that wages have barely budged relative to the soaring cost of groceries and consumer goods. But how high can inflation go, one might ask, when the broad middle class can no longer afford stuff? Answer: Only so far. The wealthy will not have much of a counter-effect, either, since the trillions they've banked from the bull market will get plowed back into financial assets and real estate, not CPI items. Meanwhile, the theory that raising the minimum wage creates inflation has been tested and refuted by a pandemic-strained job market. What it does most clearly is destroy jobs. McDonald's may have rolled over on paying burger flippers $15 an hour -- what choice did they have? -- but they have minimized their pain by revamping the restaurants so that as few as three or four employees can run an outlet, including the drive-through. For customers, this means it now takes ten minutes to order a burger using a kiosk, compared to 90 seconds when there was someone behind the counter taking orders. Virtually all labor-intensive businesses continue to find new ways to operate with fewer employees, and many of them, including banks, are on the verge of

Considering that AAPL is the most dependable bellwether we could have imagined for a bull market that has been powered by virtually unlimited quantities of money and unprecedented hubris, we should be most gratified to see it tracking a pattern that absolutely, positively cannot miss. By that I mean that the 151.02 target when reached will produce a precisely shortable peak, and that a decisive push past p on Monday or Tuesday will all but guarantee that 'D' will be achieved.  The pattern has also produced a juicy 'mechanical' buy that would have yielded a $1,280 gain on four round lots. Moreover, it seems likely that any more such signals would work equally well.  The only uncertainty in the picture is the precise stall Friday at the midpoint Hidden Pivot, 144.65. This is the second stall there in a week, and for all we know it could mark the end of the bull market. I mention this because the very suggestion sounds so ridiculous. To be sure, AAPL is taking its sweet old time pushing past p=144.65. But we shouldn't mistake this for weakness; it is deception, really, and that is why the bearish buzz that permeated the Rick's Picks chat room on Friday seemed so odd. Are bears seeing what I am seeing? Evidently not.

The rally from September 29's low at 21.60 has 'Matt's Curse' going for it if little else. This trading rule, formulated by subscriber Matt Barnes, holds that a reversal from very close to p2, the secondary pivot, is a good bet to stop out the pattern. I'd originally rated a 'mechanical' short at x=23.80 a so-so bet, but given the precise low at p2, I am no longer recommending the trade (other than via a 'camouflage' set-up, since that can reduce entry risk by as much as 90%, providing attractive odds for an otherwise risky speculation).  We'll see what Monday brings, but if you're jones-ing to trade this howling banshee, stay close to the chat room. ______ UPDATE (Oct 23): The steep rally of the last three weeks came with a zillionth of an inch on Friday of validating 'the Curse'. It would have occurred with a push above the 24.95 point 'C' high of the bearish pattern pictured here. The breakout we are likely to see next week will provide an opportunity to get short in the 'discomfort zone', but let's do so gingerly if at all, since bulls may at long last be getting the upper hand.

IWM's short-squeeze gap past an 'internal' peak from September 27 is a weak breakout but a breakout nonetheless and therefore tradeable with a bullish bias. That's notwithstanding the fact that Friday's peak into a roomy discomfort zone set up a short that was nicely profitable by Friday's close. The pullback should be seen as merely corrective, however, rather than the beginning of yet another return to the bottom of a tedious range that long ago ceased to hold our attention. I'm not going to day-trade this vehicle for you, but I'll gladly vet any actionable trading ideas you bring to the chat room. My hunch is that a 'mechanical' set-up on a lesser chat will be up to the task. ______ UPDATE (Oct 27, 9:12 p.m.): If this nasty correction comes down to x=218.76, it would trip a 'mechanical' buy, stop 213.82. We would not be shooting for a run-up to D=233.55, only to p=223.69, at least to begin with. _______ UPDATE (Oct 28, 8:43 p.m.): The 233.25 target is where IWM is going, and there is no doubt about it.

Bertie's brutish poke through the 54,914 Hidden Pivot resistance shown here left little doubt about where its fat-cat sponsors are taking it next.  Shifting to a bullish ABCD pattern of higher degree yields a 64,871 target that should be used as a minimum upside projection for the near term. The nasty C-D leg has yet to gift bulls with a 'mechanical' buying opportunity, so we won't count on one. Trading interest has all but vanished from the chat room lately, but I'll be around as always if you want to bounce a timely idea off me. _____ UPDATE (Oct 19, 9:12 p.m. ET): Time once again to raise our sights — this time to 89,780, the highest target I can project using the larger charts. Judging from the way the usual lunatics chased this vehicle through the red line (p=59,302), more upside to at least p2=74,542 looks all but certain. Every level of the pattern — x, p and p2 — will be in play for ‘mechanical’ entries, with a ‘camouflage’ alternative if were are not blessed with any pullbacks violent enough for the ‘mechanical’ set-up. _______ UPDATE (Oct 21,, 8:46 a.m.): This morning's violent swoon has reminded us why Bertie is not for amateurs. The $4289 dip-on-steroids undoubtedly shook out a few rubes, although the fat cats, including banks with no actual skin in the game, couldn't have cared less about their fleeting losses. This chart shows that the shakedown, nasty as it was, wasn't quite severe enough to bring Bertie down to the green line, where a no-brainer 'mechanical' bid could have been waiting. However, the red line (p=63,308 here) could have been used as well, albeit with more initial risk, using a stop-loss at 61,876 that easily held. _______ UPDATE (Oct 21, 6:10 p.m.): A 'mechanical' bid