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Bullion fans were revved up after Friday's close when they learned that Warren Buffett had taken a plunge in bullion, acquiring shares of Barrick Gold worth about $563 million. This is welcome news, but it is also small potatoes for Berkshire Hathaway. Recall that when the investment firm bought $9.7 billion worth of Dominion Energy's gas transmission lines six weeks ago, it was seen as just a token bet on the energy patch. Still, if anyone is going to jump on a long-term trend before most have noticed it, it is Buffett. He may be a johnnie-come-lately compared to gold bugs who have been sitting on physical and accumulating mining shares for years, but it seems unlikely that Buffett would even bother with bullion if he did not see a favorable trend developing for the long term. Kissing Off Goldman Sachs To be sure, his defensive instincts are probably ratcheted to-the-max these days, in no small part because of the large position he has amassed in Apple. No one, least of all a legendary bargain-hunter like Buffett, could believe the consumer electronics firm's shares offer good value for a current $2 trillion. It should therefore come as no surprise that the Sage of Omaha has been edging toward hard-money assets to preserve his capital in these way-too-interesting times. Perhaps even more significant than his gold bet is a corresponding decision to exit the remainder of his position in Goldman Sachs and to greatly reduce positions in JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo. We can reasonably infer that he sees lower profits ahead for paper-shufflers and deal-makers, and perhaps even for their trade desks. It does not require a big leap in logic to suggest as well that Buffett sees an end to financialization itself.  Although Berkshire has gone along with

Shhhh! Don't look now, but the S&Ps have tiptoed up to their all-time highs, presumably to attempt a quarterback sneak on Friday that would mute the hubris when they cross the goal line. DaBoyz don't want to jinx the rally or call attention to its surreal nature. After all, except for a handful of grotesquely overvalued tech stocks and some fast-food chains, America's economy, its largest cities and commercial real estate everywhere are slipping into a full-blown depression. Under the circumstances, the revelry on Wall Street is more than a little unseemly. In fact, it is a civilizational embarrassment whose dire consequences our children, their children and their children's children will be living with for the next hundred years.

I'd raised a yellow flag here yesterday, but bulls lurched back into gear so powerfully on Wednesday that virtually all rally targets currently outstanding seem likely to be achieved. AAPL, the leader of the pack, had begun to look a little tired, but in retrospect this was just a pose to lull bears into stepping up their bets earlier in the week. Their lapse in judgment came home to roost when AAPL opened on a gap higher and never looked back. The stock was up more than $15 at one point, finishing the day with a 3.5% gain that outpaced AMZN, CMG, GOOG and some other lunatic-sector stalwarts that performed impressively as well. Now, if AAPL can close for two consecutive days above 457, the stock would become an odds-on bet to hit 491.  The Swiss central bank, as mentioned here earlier, is a big investor in the stock. Perhaps the burghers are starting to wonder whether it's worth it for the Swiss to get their hands dirty manufacturing Rolexes and chocolate?

Although I'm confident today's vicious selloff in bullion, the worst in more than seven years, will prove to be merely corrective, I'm not so sure about the selling that has hit the institutionally blessed 'lunatic' stocks, AAPL in particular.  The iPhone seller recently achieved a valuation of nearly $2 trillion, putting it well above Aramco and every other company whose shares have been traded on an exchange. The bearish case is not based on valuations, however, but on the fact that the stock's recent top occurred precisely at the 'secondary Hidden Pivot' of a major uptrend. This is shown in the chart as a stall at p2, the pink line at 457.37. Trend failures that occur exactly at this line are notoriously dangerous, although I aired my doubts at the time that this particular stall would prove fatal. The downtrend has since lengthened as AAPL has fallen on three of the last four days.  A 490.97 rally target still outstanding is valid and will remain so unless the stock plummets to $355, a 20% decline from here. However, we should be on our guard and open-minded to the possibility that the most grandiose, delusional rally ever has come to a quiet end. It is not quite as ominous as that cough in the second reel of a melodrama, but neither should we assume that it is just Garbo with a touch of hay fever.

Much as I'd hoped to find a technical glimmer of sanity, it is nowhere in sight on DIA's intraday charts.  The island-gap reversal (see inset) back in early June was ostensibly bearish, but last week's consolidation above the gap and the midpoint Hidden Pivot of the very bullish pattern shown suggests bears are in for at least a few more weeks of brutally tough love. Friday's pop above p was slight, but the fact that DIA closed above it, and that this occurred on the high end of the week's final hourly bar, suggests that bulls are as revved up as they were in early April, before they embarked on the most powerful and financially consequential rally in history. The 297.18 target shown would leave the Dow just a hair shy of 30,000, and there's no point in fighting it. Our trading bias will remain bullish for the foreseeable future, presumably via 'mechanical' entries of a lesser degree than the chart shown. A pullback of one full HP level, however unlikely, would be a screaming 'mechanical' buy. _______ UPDATE (Aug 12, 4:38 p.m. ET): Buyers are closing on p2=285.16 (see inset) -- a good place to look for a tradeable stall, especially if you've been long on the way up. _______ UPDATE (Aug 19, 8:40 p.m.): The 285.16 rally target and the trade remain valid, although today's drop occurred with DIA having gotten no higher than 281.76.

The stock's vertical climb reversed Friday from within a hair of a technical target I'd drum-rolled a while back, allowing subscribers to initiate short positions with puts that went in-the-black almost instantly, just as we should prefer.  We all ended the day wondering, however, how long it would take for The Thing That Wouldn't Die to rev its jets for another rampage.  I'd estimate that an eventual move to at least 490.97, the Hidden Pivot target shown in the chart, is an 80% shot, given the way short-covering madmen gapped the stock through two HP levels in just two days as August began.  By last week, though, buyers were overdue for a breather, even if not looking spent. Although a retracement to the red line (p=423.78) would trip a 'mechanical' buy, I'll suggest holding out for even better prices if we should decide to jump in at all. AAPL hasn't had a correction lasting longer than three consecutive days since before the March crash, but if it were to whip around early this week and take out last week's record peak on less than four days' rest, that would be amazing but also appalling, since it would imply a degree of heedlessness and greed on the part of buyers (including the Swiss central bank, apparently) that until now had been unimaginable. AAPL has friends in high places, but that doesn't mean they aren't just as crazy as lowly portfolio managers who are paid to stay fully invested at all times in just ten stocks. _______ UPDATE (Aug 10, 8:05 p.m. ET):  It turns out that Switzerland owns $6.3 billion worth of Apple shares, and that the burghers are continuing to add to this position with flim-flammery that even Powell & Co. must envy.  Here's the full story from Wolfe Richter. _______

The Dollar Index is closing on a long-term trendline that bears watching. It's been six years since the dollar last fell to the line, implying this technical tool is not sufficiently well-developed to give us a confident basis for predicting a major reversal. But if one does occur it would mark an approximately 12% correction from the 103.82 high recorded in January 2017.  An intervening rally in the 2018-20 period topped at the height of March madness before institutional investors settled on the rote themes that have dominated since then.  Looking just ahead, if DXY were to connect with the trendline by late August, the touch-and-go landing we are looking for would occur at around 91.78.  We'll use this as a downside target for now, since it looks more promising than any Hidden Pivot support I could offer you. It would be more than a little useful to get this prediction right, since a trend change in the dollar would likely reverse all of the trends that have become entrenched over the last five months, including the bullish ones in gold, silver, the stock market, crude oil and copper. _______ UPDATE (Aug 18, 6:15 p.m.): The dollar looks horrible, but it will look even worse if it takes out the trendline noted above. It comes in around 91.74 this week. _______ UPDATE (Aug 20, 6:33 p.m. ET): A promising rally turned flaccid on day two, although not before poking above some minor peaks from earlier in the week to create a bullish impulse leg on the hourly chart. DXY would need to hit 94.21 to suggest something serious is happening.

GDX's plunge deepened on Friday, but subscribers were able to sidestep the so-far 8% dive using a longstanding rally target at 45.71 that caught the tip of last week's spike within 7 cents. We should view this reversal with more than the usual amount of caution, since the high failed by 19 cents to surpass a small but technically significant 'external' peak at 45.96 recorded back in early 2013. To be sure, it would take a print down at 40.20 to even hint of trouble on the daily chart, and we will treat this weakness in the meantime as a buying opportunity. But our bids will be less aggressive than usual, and we may even attempt to get short if a compelling opportunity should arise.  Stay tuned meanwhile to the chat room, where crowdsourcing in this vehicle has served us well. _______ UPDATE (Aug 11, 8:35 p.m. ET): You don't have to be a chartist to see that GDX has farther to fall before it can find good traction. This chart shows two logical places for the correction to bottom: at 36.84, re[resenting a 0.618 retracement of the rally begun from 31.32  in mid-June; and 34.93, equating to a 75% correction.  There  will be opportunities to trade both sides of the market on the way down, so stay tuned to the chat room for real-time, crowdsourced guidance. ______ UPDATE (Aug 17, 7:0 p.m.): The escape from last week's bog has been more decisive than I'd expected, but I'm not entirely persuaded it's for keeps. Let's see if the stock can impale the 43.17 midpoint pivot shown in this chart. If so, it'll be presumptively on its way to D=44.39. _______ UPDATE (Aug 18, 6:19 p.m.): An extremely nasty spike, as gratuitous as they come, failed by 30 cents to hit

I was prepared  to lead this week's commentary with an emphatically bullish forecast for the dollar, which seems to have few friends these days. Alas, even though a major tone change is coming, it will be at least a few more weeks if not longer before this occurs, since the stock market looks as revved up as ever. Shares in a dozen or so mega-cap multinationals have been investors' main alternative to the dollar, and the trends that have dominated each in recent months are equally senseless and overdone. The Dollar Index no more deserves to be trading  in the dismal low-90s than Apple's shares deserve to be valued at nearly $2 trillion. The inevitable reversal of these trends threatens to lay bare the Fed's crackpot scheme to revive global prosperity with little more than monetary keystrokes, blandly reassuring press releases and some nutty policy mumbo-jumbo that could never have passed muster five years ago, let alone during times when the collective economic wisdom of Paul Volcker, Kurt Richebächer, Herb Stein et al. held sway. These days, the halfwits who invent the news know little of these men, only of Jerome Powell & Co., and the banksters' improbable success at triggering a huge stock-market rally with the global economy poised on the edge of an abyss. True Believers  My incipient bullishness on the dollar was inspired by some subtle vibes from the financial penumbra, including word that Morgan Stanley had exited a short position in the dollar after concluding it was at its most oversold in 40 years. Ordinarily I pay little attention to what the firms are doing, since they are quasi-criminal operators who make their money front-running customers whom they goad into stampedes. How else would Chipotle, which traded for $415 in March, find plenty of eager buyers