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A series of bullish targets in AAPL and the E-Mini S&Ps has kept us steadfastly on the right side of the trend, insane as it has seemed at times. In my latest update (see below), a target for the latter suggests it could be on its way to as high as 3149, just 7% below the all-time peak.  The target is not quite the sure thing we've enjoyed using lesser ABC patterns, but it looks like no worse than a 50-50 bet to be reached.  I've made the tout publicly viewable, although you would need to subscribe in order to access timely trading ideas tied to Hidden Pivot targets. Click here for a $1 trial subscription that will allow you to access all features and services of Rick's Picks, including two virtual rooms that draw great traders from around the world.

Today's chart shows an ambitious target at 3149.00 -- a swing-for-the-fences number that will spare us the annoyance of adjusting upward every time a lesser target is reached. The Dow would be trading within 10% of all-time highs at that point, the S&Ps within 7%. This may sound farfetched considering the state of the economy, but I'd lay even odds on this bet for three reasons: 1) the A-B impulse leg is the real McCoy, having exceeded a daunting external peak recorded on March 10; 2) the B-C leg has traded above the 2933.25 midpoint resistance; and 3) Friday's downdraft triggered a 'mechanical' buy, albeit a weak one.  All things considered, the pattern suggests 3149.00 has a good chance of being reached, perhaps after a struggle that could take 7-10 days. I am not putting out that number to you just so that you can obsess over shorting it. It is intended to open your eyes to bullish opportunities as the futures move higher. ______ UPDATE (May 6, 5:30 p.m.): Big players sat out the round, presumably amusing themselves while scalpers and day traders spent the entire session kicking each other in the nuts. As much was predictable when overnight action bogged down in tedium, as though there were nothing of interest going on in the real world. It also came as no surprise when the trading world's midgets an dwarves sent the futures into a gratuitous dive in the final hour. Please wake me when technical traders and machines programmed by nerds who have never traded anything in their lives have burned themselves out and price action returns to abnormal, the way we like it. _______ UPDATE (May 7, 9:25 p.m.): The futures are bound for a minimum 2929.00, the likeable target shown in this chart. If I say

One might have imagined that fighting a deadly global pandemic would transcend political differences in America, but instead it has only sharpened them. A friend who plays in a weekly poker game that features high stakes and nine players says the ones who get their news from Fox want to re-open everything, while the CNN/MSNCB guys want to keep the quarantine tightly in place more or less indefinitely. This comes as no surprise to me personally. Several weeks ago I emailed a brother who lives in San Francisco a YouTube video in which a noted  epidemiologist explained the futility of trying to defeat the new coronavirus with lockdowns, however strict. My brother took the email as a political affront and we haven't spoken since. Although the civil rights dimension of the lockdown is the big story now, the ACLU unsurprisingly has sided not with you and me, but with state and local enforcers. On the far left of the pandemic divide is the New York Times, which has buried its head in the sand on the matter of whether the virus originated in a Wuhan lab. Neither the Times nor anyone without top security clearance has seen a report that Trump and a few others are saying makes a compelling case for the lab theory.  Evidence aside, the Times has scoffed at this claim rather than graciously acknowledging we should simply wait for the facts. If they come, however voluminously, expect the Gray Lady to reject them as either inaccurate or poorly supported. Racist Beekeepers? Since I don't read the Times, I have no idea whether it has picked up on reports of a 'murder hornet' with well-documented origins in Japan turning up in the U.S.  Mother nature's heavily-pincered, two-inch version of an attack drone has been savaging the hives

Monday's commentary typically goes out before markets lurch back to life Sunday evening, but it appeared likely that the weakness we saw on Friday will continue and perhaps gain momentum. Rick's Picks unfurled the yellow flag just in time Thursday night after the S&Ps and AAPL both failed to reach respective Hidden Pivot rally targets by crucial inches. Concerning the latter, Warren Buffett turns out to have dumped about 25% of Berkshire Hathaway's $72 billion stake during the first quarter. [Late-breaking note:  I am now informed by my source that Berkshire Hathaway did not in fact sell a significant portion of its Apple holdings, at least not as of March 31. My hunch, however, is that Berkshire eventually will be shown to have sold quite a few shares of the stock as it rallied into the April window. RA] Well before this news, we had characterized Apple's powerful bear rally as smart money unloading as much stock as possible into a short-covering panic. Buffett being Buffett, he and his ilk have been very careful about not dumping so much stock into the buying frenzy that it might risk overwhelming it. On the evidence, this is exactly what has been happening, and it seems all but certain that Buffett and the Masters of the Universe will continue to distribute stock as deftly as waning demand will allow. With AAPL's ascent to heedless levels, the smart guys will probably increase the supply commensurately. We are on record with a prediction that the shares will eventually trade for less than $100. Although Buffett and DaBoyz are not likely to be so bearish, they undoubtedly have the good sense to recognize that exiting above $250 is a time-limited opportunity that might never come again. In any event, Rick's Picks remains bearish as all get-out

Last week's high not only failed by a few points to reach a clear and compelling Hidden Pivot target, it also failed to exceed a small but technically significant peak created in early April at 2975.00 (see inset). The latter shortfall was just ten points, but that's sufficient for us to infer that short-covering grew less urgent at the top of last week's parabola. The futures subsequently came down hard to end the week, but the slide did no serious damage to the hourly chart. It did, however, generate minor impulse legs the whole way down, and that's why there was no compelling reason to cover shorts on the close. Let's see how they open Sunday night before we speculate as to what is likely next. _______ UPDATE (May 4, 9:34 p.m. EDT): Bears failed miserably yet again to drive a stake through this beast's heart, and so we should expect more of the same -- i.e., another burst of irrational exuberance that seems all but certain to hit the 2860.08 target shown in this chart. Short there with a tight stop only if you've made at least $500 on the way up. ______ UPDATE (May 5, 8:36 a.m.): Next stop Willoughby!  Bears had such an easy time of it driving this giddy bag of gas to 2860 overnight that I've skipped a point 'A' low at 2788.50 (9:45 a.m. yesterday) in order to calculate a potential short-term, end-of-the-line top at 2874.83. Shorting 2860 overnight was the predictable 3:00 a.m. ordeal we've come to expect, accessible only to subscribers who live outside of U.S. time zones, but the payoff was as much as $5600 on four contracts. The anticipated correction came from a temporary peak at 2865, implying an rABC set-up would have been less stressful than the tightly stopped

My latest commentary tees off on AAPL, reiterating my forecast for an eventual move below $100, but strictly speaking, Friday's price action, nutty as it was, provided no technical basis for predicting that the stock is about to fall apart. It would take a plunge exceeding last Tuesday's 278.20 low to generate a threatening impulse leg on the hourly chart, and although that's hardly inconceivable, we'll let the stock speak for itself before drawing any conclusions. A 'mechanical' buy would trigger at p=285.26, stop 278.65, but I'd suggest spectating just to familiarize yourself with this bold tactic for getting long/short where others fear to tread. _____ UPDATE (May 4, 9:40 p.m.): A deftly engineered plunge on Friday's opening bar exhausted sellers, paving the way for a spectacular 12-point short-squeeze that has left bears off-balance as the new week begins. Monday's action started out with similarly deceptive weakness, just not enough of it to bring the stock down to our infotainment bid at 285.26. The 305.08 target shown in the chart still obtains, but we can use a lesser Hidden Pivot at 302.19 as a minimum upside target for the near term (5-min, A=278.20 on 4/20 at 4:00 p.m.)

The S&Ps and Apple shares fell slightly shy of their respective Hidden Pivot rally targets on Thursday, so I am unfurling the yellow flag.  Without offering any specific projections, Apple showed weak revenue growth and sees at least a couple of tough quarters ahead. Under the circumstances, I would advise particular caution if the broad averages rally on Friday without exceeding Thursday's highs. With just a little good news on the pandemic front, that could be sufficient enticement for traders to take long positions over the weekend. Whatever the news, nothing will have changed the grim outlook for the economy for the foreseeable future. A new wrinkle is that overly generous unemployment checks are making it hard for businesses trying to reopen to hire help. A Portland operator/owner of 20 restaurants hires cooks for $15/hour, but the ones it laid off are collecting the equivalent of $25 an hour for not working.

With so-so earnings out after Thursday's close, DaBoyz conspicuously failed to goose the stock to the 305.08 rally target sent out to you last night. AAPL fell more than $4 shy of that mark and looked unlikely to try again -- unless the stock's resourceful handlers can scare up a gaggle of short-covering maniacs overnight. Meanwhile, the E-Mini S&Ps similarly failed by a few points to reach a clear Hidden Pivot target. Taken together, these small disappointments suggest that the spectacular short-covering panic of the last five weeks may be sputtering out. Friday will probably provide opportunities to make money trading in either direction, but beware of taking long positions over the weekend if the broad averages close higher without having exceeded Thursday's peaks.

Boeing's $9.65 surge on Wednesday, an astounding one-day gain of 7.3%, pretty much sums up the psychotic nature of the stock market's epic squeeze. It occurred with this item on the front page of the Wall Street Journal as a backdrop: "Boeing faces criminal and civil scrutiny into years of widespread quality-control lapses on it 737 MAX assembly lines." Fancy that! And yet, buyers seemingly couldn't get enough of the stock yesterday. Its sharp rise was perfectly synced with the FAANG/lunatic sector, which powered relentlessly higher with no exceptions or laggards. Driven by short-covering and a deft lightening of supply by The Smart Money, the rally is as disconnected from reality as any ever witnessed. In dollar terms, it is the most powerful rally ever.  For my thoughts on when, and how, it could end, check out the E-Mini S&P tout immediately below.