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 No one said it would be easy to get short at the top. This bull market is proving especially challenging to fade because the herd knows how grotesquely overvalued stocks are. With so many traders eager to bet the 'don't' line, the broad averages have started to behave like El Diablo (see photo above). The Dow has staged three 600-point-plus rallies-to-nowhere since peaking two weeks ago, but none lasted for more than a day. Although bull riders must hang on for eight seconds to claim a prize, traders could conceivably have to endure weeks or even months of loco price action to hit it big. Many will get busted up badly trying. The 'everything bubble', as it is called, is wherever one looks:  stocks, bonds, real estate, art...African American Barbie dolls. There are more homes listed for $5 million and up than there are Smiths in the Manhattan phone directory. Ironically, gold and silver are among the few investable assets that are not in a bubble. That tells you how badly the players have misjudged the risks of a financial cataclysm. They've gone all-in on bitcoin instead, as though scarcity alone could make cryptocurrency money, a store of value or a hedge against the crash that is coming. Fed Quackery Fed Chairman Powell's every utterance has been the obsessive focus of economists and pundits who make their living taking the central bank's monetary quackery seriously. Does anyone actually believe that credit stimulus will produce an economy healthy enough to service the trillions of dollars in debt we've accumulated desperately trying to keep an asset bubble from deflating? The effort is not only doomed, it is likely to to produce a deflationary collapse featuring a strong dollar and crushing real rates of interest. Sound impossible? Not with everyone on the 'inflation'

We'll stick with our game plan: a mechanical bid at 38,328, stop 28,819. Since the initial risk would be $9509, the trade is recommended only to those who have profited significantly from my previous bitcoin recommendations. All have been profitable, albeit with sizable draw-downs in some instances. Feel free in any event to interpolate the trade using a cheaper vehicle, such as RIOT or GBTC,  to cut entry risk down to size.  Please note that a somewhat riskier 'mechanical' entry already triggered at 47,845, using a 41,500 stop-loss.  I expect the trade to work, but I did not explicitly recommend it because the lower entry at 38,328, if it ripens, looks like a better bet. Both gambits use an ABC pattern projecting to 66,880, a target given here previously. ______ UPDATE (from the chat room, Mar 10): The paper trade from 47,845 is still going strong. As those of you who have followed my Bitcoin trading signals here and in the chat room will attest, this vehicle has yet to trigger a 'mechanical' trade on the daily chart that didn't make money. I hadn't expected the 38,328 entry to trigger, since that would have implied stopping out the existing trade. It's plain to see that bitcoin does not gift timid bulls with lazy corrections.

The global credit-blowout has stoked fears of a money-printing catastrophe like the one that wrecked Germany's economy a hundred years ago, planting the seeds of World War II.  However, even a cursory look at the Weimar hyperinflation of 1921-23 reveals why it is extremely unlikely to happen again, especially on a global scale.  It was a local event involving physical paper currency that would be nearly impossible to replicate using a global reserve dollar, particularly at a time when digital transactions overwhelmingly dominate. The German hyperinflation featured literal boxcars of D-marks delivered weekly to the biggest employers. The country was a 'union shop', so to speak, and the sums sent to workers ahead of each payday were continually renegotiated to include an adjustment for inflation. The system was put in place in order to hold down unemployment and worker unrest. It worked so well, at least initially, that the Germans enjoyed lower joblessness in 1920-22 than some of the Allied nations that had defeated them in The Great War. Money by the Boxcar The money-filled boxcars pushed the exchange rate to an extreme, in 1923, of 4.2 trillion marks per dollar. However, the periodic spikes in money creation that quickly ramped inflation to this level were caused not chiefly by official money-printing, but by employers who issued their own scrip. This was by agreement with the German government, which was fearful of riots if workers were not paid on time. In fact, Germany's money presses, stressed to the limit, did break down a couple of times during the 1921-23 period. Employers reacted to this emergency with such patriotic vigor that it was immediately following each of their scrip-a-loozas that inflation took unfathomable leaps. No similar mechanism or infrastructure exists to ramp up the physical supply of U.S. dollars. Although it

They don't ring a bell at the top of bull markets, as the saying goes, but perhaps this time it will be different.  Indeed, every sentient guru and talking head who is not shilling for Wall Street is properly bearish, and even the chimpanzees who make their living rotating Other People's Money into flavor-of-the-month investment themes were beginning to doubt the stock market's sanity. If a much-needed 10,000-point drop in the Dow is coming, consider it electroshock therapy.  Unfortunately, it'll probably take a lot more than that to purge the markets of mental illness as serious as we've seen in recent years. Speaking as a trader and a chartist, I'm looking forward to the violent price swings that likely lie ahead. The Hidden Pivot Method turns out to work best when things get really crazy, as occurred during the dot-com mania and the Great Financial Collapse of 2007-08.  It will be interesting to see whether the Reddit kids have scared off institutional heavies who might otherwise get short up the wazoo over the course of a bear market. My hunch is that they will still short like crazy but avoid doing so in individual stocks that could attract dangerous attention. Keeping Suckers in the Game Getting short will not be a piece of cake, since a bear market as long overdue as this one is going to attract many players who are all-too-eager to pick tops. We've tried it ourselves recently using Hidden Pivot targets that precisely nailed peaks in several indexes, although not in IWM, a small-cap vehicle that still has a major target outstanding 4% above, at 234.82. Like so many amateurs, we got spooked out of some DIA puts on Wednesday when the Dow rallied nearly 500 points. That's the way it's going to be the whole

IWM's recent failure to achieve either of two rally targets I'd drum-rolled is curious, given that it has been the vehicle of choice for portfolio chimps paid to throw other people's money at superficially appealing 'themes'. The more important of the targets is 234.82, derived from a pattern that stretches back to the beginning of the bull market in 2009.  The other is the 232.72 target shown in the inset.  It's possible the chimps, abetted by their unwitting slaves, short-covering bears, will lay waste to the two Hidden Pivot obstacles in the week(s) ahead. For now, though, we can infer only that Big Money has stalled, presumably waiting for bears to provide the kind of boost that mere bullish buying cannot. Given the targeted tops that have occurred recently in the Dow, QQQ and S&Ps, the burden of proof will be on the optimists as the week begins. ______ UPDATE (Feb 24, 7:25 p.m.): The lunatic brigades were back, bolstered by short covering that drove this gas bag to within easy distance of 234.82. Right now, that's the only place I'm recommending getting short. _______ UPDATE (Feb 25, 6:12 p.m. EST): Our chances of getting short at 234.82 further dimmed today, although IWM's dive has yet to do any serious damage to the intraday charts. Let's see what Friday brings. 

[Dear readers, I am taking a desperately needed break from telling you why a stock market crash is long overdue, and why Biden & Friends are finally going to make it happen.  Full disclosure: I have not read a newspaper or watched the news since November. RA ] We’ve all grown so weary of spam callers pushing auto warranty coverage that voters would probably support the death penalty for the slimebags responsible for these calls. The recorded voice says “This is your final notice. The factory warranty on your vehicle is about to expire,” or some such. I get about ten of these calls a week, and although they used to spoof Colorado phone numbers because I lived there for 20 years, lately the calls have been coming from all over the U.S. How We All Pay Do we dare take encouragement from reports that Sen. Charles Schumer has been receiving these calls like the rest of us, and that he is so pissed off that he has vowed to do something about it?  "Not only are these calls a nuisance," he told the New York Times, "they also tie up land lines and can eat up a user’s cell phone minutes, possibly leading to a higher cell phone bill due to overage charges.” Schumer, arguably the most powerful member of the U.S. Senate, has called for a federal investigation into “robo-dialer harassment.” He’s even gotten headlines with a call to war: Schumer Urges Inquiry of Companies Behind Bogus Auto Warranty Calls announced the Times. Sounds promising, right? Wrong. The headline is actually from 2009 (!!), and you can judge for yourself how much progress the Senate majority leader and his colleagues have made ridding us of the auto warranty plague. Sadly, a Google search would seem to suggest that

Gold remains easily tradeable not only on the intraday charts, but on the 'daily' as well. A routine 'mechanical' short sketched out here last week produced a quick profit of $3100 per contract, even if the set-up was uninspiring. Traders should have no illusions, however, that they will be catching the start of a major move. since the long, tedious slog lower since last August offers no hint of a significant turn. The correction at the December low amounted to just 16% off the 2107 high recorded in August, not even qualifying as a bear market. Nor has the correction produced a bearish impulse leg on the daily chart; that would take a breach of the 1704 low recorded last June. Wake me if this happens, or if a powerful stab higher takes out November's 1978 high -- an event that would be bullishly impulsive and suggest gold might be on its way to as high as 2284. _______ UPDATE (Feb 16, 10:03 a.m. EST): The futures are getting pounded today for no good reason, presumably bound for the  1765.50 target shown. They typically do not reach D targets in either direction, but in this case the precipitous move through p  suggests selling will go the distance. Here's the chart. _____ UPDATE (Feb 17, 8:37 p.m.): A so far feeble bounce has occurred from within 2.40 points of the 1765.50 target, but it would take a print at 1795.20 to lift bulls from immediate jeopardy. _______ UPDATE (Feb 18, 9:43 p.m.):  Gold got barely any bounce from the 1765.50 target. This means it is about to fall to 1749.80, where you should look for a tradeable bounce. Here's the chart.

I've shifted the point 'A' low a dozen bars to the left, an adjustment in pattern logic that has raised the rally target by around than 300 points, to 54,331. We've been using a target at 48,834 to stay confidently on the right side of an insane uptrend, but last week's 48,905 effectively fulfilled it, marking a top a scant five-hundredths of a percentage point from our original price objective. Since then the futures have pulled back only slightly, hinting that the stampede is intent most immediately on the new target at 54,331. Given the clarity of the pattern to which it is tied, I doubt this Hidden Pivot resistance will be a pushover. However, judging from the way bulls impaled the midpoint pivot at 41,570, odds of the target not being reached are close to nil. Plan accordingly if you trade this vehicle.

Been vaccinated yet?  I haven't, although I'm trying not to give friends the impression that I'm making some sort of political statement. That means not emailing them links to every vaccine horror story that surfaces, or to growing evidence that the vaccine may not be all that it's cracked up to be.  That mRNA vaccines have not been well-tested and could conceivably cause bodily harm or death is beyond argument at this point.  That is why I am waiting until most Americans have gotten their shots and reported any side effects before I decide whether to get mine. The person I trust most about this is my personal physician, who also happens to be one of my oldest friends. He was quite confident back in April that the combination of hydroxycholoroquine, zinc and Zithromax was highly effective in treating Covid. This was an unpopular view at the time; indeed, half the country was rejecting it merely because it had Trump's endorsement. However, my friend had already treated two dozen Covid patients, and all but one recovered without getting very sick. The one patient who fared poorly, a mutual friend, had waited until ten days after he'd shown symptoms to start treatment. Two Brothers Part Ways My physician friend had no qualms about getting vaccinated himself, especially since he sees so many patients who are infected. He does a weekly radio show and undoubtedly has influenced many, including some who were as skeptical as I am, to get their shots. However, his brother, a surgeon, has so far chosen not to get vaccinated, mainly because of a bad reaction he once had to a flu vaccine. I'll be monitoring the health and progress of two close friends in particular, since they've been scared to death to leave their homes since lockdowns