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It was so challenging to stay short on Tuesday that the broad averages must surely be at or near an important top. This is an instinctual observation rather than a technical one, but I'm inclined to trust gut feelings based on the evidence. The two charts above illustrate the point. Notice that DIA, an ETF proxy for the Dow Industrials, head-faked on the opening bar to exceed a visually distinctive peak recorded four days earlier. The overshoot was not by much, but it would have sufficed to stop out bears using that peak to set a stop-loss just above it. Similarly, AAPL mau-maued bears on Tuesday's opening bar with a gap-up, short-squeeze opening that exceeded the previous day's closing price by nearly 3%. If that didn't spook them badly enough, the stock staged a second-wind rally that brought AAPL within striking distance of the earlier high.  The stock then fell sharply for the remainder of the day, and for good reason: buying power from short-covering bears had been spent on the two fright-mask run-ups. The foregoing is not meant to imply stocks will necessarily collapse in the next day or two, but it's obvious that Mr. Market is burning out shorts with the kind of brutal price action that could exhaust them soon. They are the most important source of buying power in a rally as grotesquely overextended as this one, and when the last of them has been gutted and disemboweled, it will be lights out for revelers.

The corrective pattern furnished here Thursday night is still on-track to fall to its D target, which for the December contract is 3233.00, nine points lower. Friday's fake overnight waft narrowly missed triggering a juicy short when it failed by a few points to reach the  green line. Now, although a run-up to the line would trigger a second signal, I am not recommending the trade unless you know how to cut the risk with an rABC set-up.  Bottom-fishing at p2=3278.25 with a tight stop-loss or 'counterintuitive' set-up will be simpler, as will similar tactics at D=3233.00.  A decisive overshoot of D would be bearish. _______ UPDATE (Sep 15, 4:38 p.m. ET): The trade came within an inch of getting stopped out, but I am still in love with the pattern, although no longer the odds.  An old Hidden Pivot rule says that if a beautiful set-up doesn't work, do the opposite. In this case, however, I am not recommending trading with a bullish bias because I don't trust the rally. Move to the sidelines for now. Here's the chart. _______ UPDATE (Sep 16, 5:04 p.m.): This is exactly what I was talking about when I said Mr. Market was doing his utmost to keep bears from getting short. This kind of price action is damned near impossible to short, at least with entry risk under tight control. _______ UPDATE (Sep 17, 10:33 p.m.): Call me a masochist, but I'm still in love with the pattern shown. It's stopped out bears no fewer than twice this week, and the D target at 3238.50 is slightly higher than the original, but that's where the futures are headed -- for sure! -- even if they get there without any of us patient, cautious, super-smart bears aboard.

The Cubes' failure to fall to the 265.20 target on Friday is dumbfounding, but there is no point in arguing with Mr. Market. The target remains valid nonetheless and could prove opportune for tightly-stopped bottom-fishing. This is notwithstanding the fact that Friday afternoon's robust recovery seems a bit excessive to set up a plunge on Monday to a marginal new low less than two points beneath Friday's bottom. If 265.20 gives way easily, I'll recommend doubling down with a tightly stopped bid at 262.93. That's the 'D target of the same pattern, but with 'A' raised to 288.93  (9/4, 10:00 a.m.) _______ UPDATE (Sep 14, 8:20 p.m. ET):  Nothing keeps this rabid beast down for long. A thrust exceeding 282.20 would negate the pattern on which the recommendations above were based. _______ UPDATE (Sep 15, 5:54 p.m.): Ordinarily a gap through p such as occurred here would guarantee 'D' will be reached. In this instance, however, the stench of distribution throughout the day was so powerful that I stop short of certifying the 281.93 target as a done deal.  Let's see how it goes. _______ UPDATE (Sep 16, 8:23 a.m.): An overnight short-squeeze got this gas-bag to 281.72, just 23 cents shy of the target. Buyers were back at it urgently following a fall of nearly $2, but their exceeding the Hidden Pivot should not be considered a done deal until it happens. _______ UPDATE (Sep 16, 5:14 p.m.): The 281.93 target caught the start of a $7.50 plunge within 21 cents. Since no one mentioned having taken advantage of this in the chat room, I have not established a tracking position. Reports? _______ UPDATE (Sep 17, 10:54 p.m.): One subscriber reported cashing out a winning option ticket in SQQQ. There is likely more where that came from, since SQQQ,

[DEC Silver] Bulls and bears have been locked in a deadly battle of tiddlywinks for a month, oscillating gratuitously in a $4 range. The tedium eventually will give way to a thrust to at least 31.285, a longstanding Hidden Pivot target shown in the chart (inset).  It is always possible to take a small position using an entry pattern on a chart of lesser degree, and to take profits on most of it while leaving one or two contracts for a swing at the fences. In this case, however, the potentially interminable wait makes the strategy unpalatable, but also vulnerable to occasional swoons.  We might consider a 'mechanical' buy on a pullback to x=25.671 nonetheless, but the $9,355/contract stop-loss demands a modified entry method to minimize risk. ______ UPDATE (Sep 20): The tiddlywinks marathon stretched on for yet another week as bulls awaited the right opportunity to demolish bears. A gratuitous swoon on Thursday was just Mr Market's way of reminding bulls that even being right is certain to be painful at times. _______ UPDATE (Sep 21, 8:55 p.m.): The futures would need to touch 27.90 to undo the technical damage wrought by today's plunge.  That's a tick higher than a small but significant 'external' peak recorded on 9/2. In the meantime, the 23.385 target shown in this chart will remain theoretically viable. _______ UPDATE (Sep 23, 10:42 a.m.): A 23.40 midpoint support is breaking down, opening a path to as low as 21.50. Here's the chart. ______ UPDATE (Sep 23, 10:12 p.m.): The futures bounced sharply after plunging to within 36 cents of the 21.50 target. We'll repair to the sidelines, since I'd rather not mess with mister in-between. The target remains viable nonetheless.

I've been looking for signs that the upturn from 91.75 on September 1 is the start of a major bull run, but so far the evidence is inconclusive. The impulsive rally since then had a chance to demonstrate exceptional strength by surpassing the three 'external' peaks shown in the chart. In the actual event, it got past only the first before correcting significantly as last week ended. Bulls could make amends with a thrust this week that vaults the other two peaks, but until that happens, we should view the rally with caution, if not quite skepticism. _______ UPDATE (Sep 16, 5:25 pm.): The lack of follow-through to the rally begun on September 1 from 91.75 has been dispiriting, but don't give up yet. It would take but an unpaused thrust exceeding peaks #2 and #3 to change the picture dramatically. ______ UPDATE (Sep 21, 10:12 p.m.): With just a modest upthrust, the Dollar Index will take out two 'external' peaks, generating an impulse leg on both the intraday and daily charts. Its imputed power will depend on whether it can do so without any more pullbacks, even minor ones, and the move would be even more bullish if DYX doesn't trade beneath the higher peak (93.99) for at least a week or so after exceeding it. Here's the chart.

[I wrote the following for the Sunday San Francisco Examiner two decades ago. I offer it as lighter fare in lieu of the usual rant about how the stock market is mentally ill, investors are besotted with greed, and the global financial system galloping toward ruinous deflation. RA] Talk about a sure thing! Here was the kind of inside information that one imagined tumbled from heaven into the ears of the anointed. It concerned not the stock market - we'll get to that part soon - but a pacer named Happy Yankee A that was running in the seventh race at Roosevelt Raceway outside of Philadelphia one evening nearly four decades ago. According to my source, this horse was not merely a strong bet to win, he was an absolute lock, lead-pipe cinch. This horse absolutely could not lose. What's more, the Yankster had looked so tired the last few times out that he would probably go off at fat odds. My tipster was Willie D, a storied acquaintance and unusually gifted confidence man who could loosen a mark's checkbook the way a starfish pries open a clam. Here he was on the phone one Saturday morning - probably to everyone he owed - trying to burnish his karma with an offer of timely investment advice. One seldom saw or heard from Willie D around breakfast time, since that was when he usually went to bed. But that day he had stayed awake, he said, to get the word out. He wanted to give his pals enough time to borrow, beg or steal as much cash as they could by post time, the better to wager on the seventh race. A Jones for Pacers If word of Happy Yankee A's expected trip to the winner's circle had come from anyone

It's obvious that the U.S. dollar is the only thing occupying investors' symian brains at the moment, since stocks are moving in lock-step against it. Even gold and silver have been kow-towing, reacting to every dollar zig with a precisely measured zag. That's why I recently shifted my technical focus from AAPL to the Dollar Index (DXY), starting with a September 1 low in the latter that missed a longstanding Rick's Picks correction target by just six cents. If the dollar continues to rise, virtually every trend in effect since the March 23 low is due to reverse. Debtors around the world will not be able to survive a strengthening dollar, nor will the charlatans at the Fed be able to do much about it. Their 2% inflation target is such a lame bluff that Powell, if he were honest, would admit the banksters are praying for it, not managing it.  A rising dollar is about to unmask all of them as fakes. It may also prompt pundits, eggheads and the news media to acknowledge that Fed 'policy' since the S&L debacle 30 years ago has been just hocus-pocus the banksters have made up as they've gone along. The very idea that America can return to prosperity by having the Fed 'buy' trillions of dollar worth of government debt is patently absurd. It is a free-lunch scheme hatched by crackpots that is believed only by economic imbeciles.

AAPL topped last week within a hair of an important rally target at 135.98, prompting this headline atop last Thursday's commentary: "Is This the Start of the Big One?" If so, it is long overdue. Valuations are worse, even, than at the height of dot-com mania, led by vertical spikes not only in AAPL, but in the shares of Tesla, Amazon, Chipotle, Google, Facebook and a few other world-beaters. Portfolio managers have thrown a mountain of Other People's Money at a relative handful of stocks that are deemed likely to flourish in these economically challenging times. The geniuses keep dumping more and more money into the same few stocks because they evidently are clueless about what to do next.  This has caused the value of some big companies still doing brisk business during the pandemic to soar into the hundreds of billions of dollars, or even into the trillions. Crazy. Throughout the mania, we've focused more on AAPL than on any other stock simply because it is the one stock that no portfolio manager can be without. Under the circumstances, if a forecaster gets AAPL right, he invariably gets the stock market right. Rick's Picks has succeeded well at this, remaining foolishly bullish against all common sense and wisdom. But last week's sharp selloff, coming at a time when most investors were already getting antsy about valuations, has many wondering whether it will mark the end of the party or just a healthy correction. Labor Day Expectations Our take is that the weakness occurred because too many investors had expected stocks to drift higher as they often do ahead of Labor Day weekend. However, there are a couple of reasons why we should assume higher prices will soon return. For one, the selloff generated too much bear-market buzz, especially among

If there is reason for bears to be hopeful that Thursday's savage selling was the start of the Big One, it is AAPL's dramatic trend failure from slightly above a 135.96 target on the long-term chart. Using the Hidden Pivot Method, that was the last rally target that could be extrapolated from the weekly chart. The clear implication is that even if the stock is going to come roaring back, it will take at least two to three weeks for it to base.  Any less would be surprising, if not to say shocking, but we should not in any case underestimate the bold madness that has driven the rally since March 23. I've tracked AAPL very closely on the theory that if you get institutional shareholders' most passionately beloved stock right, you get the market right.  However, I am shifting my focus to the U.S. dollar, which is in a so-far modest bounce from very major trendline support. If the dollar is changing direction following a nasty slide since March, then every other trend in motion since then is about to reverse as well. That would imply the broad stock averages and the FAANGs will fall along with crude oil quotes and bond prices.  For now, though, although Thursday's slide was quite painful for many investors, we should not assume them incapable of a vigorous resurgence.  Arguably, Thursday's selloff was caused, not by myriad factors cited by the usual 'experts,' but by widespread certitude that seasonality would keep stocks moving higher at least until Labor Day. So much for that theory. But if the weakness is meaningful, we should see it start to snowball next week, setting up a September crash that would have a good chance of being one for the record books.