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One good rally and everyone's bullish! How else to explain yesterday's abortive attempt to do it again?  Just as traders came to their desks Monday morning looking for stocks to plummet, on Tuesday they evidently thought the Dow was going to tack on another 1000 points. When it did so early in the session, it was easy to think this was the start of another monster move. To the contrary, stocks peaked on the opening bar and it was mostly downhill from there. Moreover, weakness in the final hour would have challenged the resolve of anyone bent on bottom-fishing. The fleeting, bull-trap opening was not quite strong enough to get AAPL or the E-Mini S&Ps to their respective targets. The shortfall in either case was not large, but the subsequent selloff had some subscribers wondering whether I was still confident the targets will be reached. The answer is yes, mainly because of the way AAPL impaled a Hidden Pivot midpoint resistance on the way up Monday. This sort of price action usually means the target associated with the midpoint resistance will be reached. In AAPL's case, it sits at 282.45, a little more than $10 above Tuesday's intraday high of 271.10.  That high occurred almost precisely at a 'secondary pivot' shown in the chart that stood to be a potential stumbling block for bulls (as I'd noted in the Trading Room). The $12 decline that followed was brutal, but it did little technical damage to AAPL's intraday charts. Doomed Rally As for the E-Mini S&Ps, they peaked at 2750, somewhat shy of the 2783 target I'd proffered. A trend failure at or near the secondary pivot is concerning, since reversals from very close to this level often accelerate. For now, though, I'll stick with my forecast that the E-Minis and

My forecast zigged and DIA zagged. Oh well. Now DIA is about to probe the 228.77 midpoint resistance shown in the chart. An easy move through it should be taken as a sign that more upside to at least p2=239.56 remains. The outlandish D target at 250.35 would somewhat exceed a corresponding target at 2881 that I've proffered for the E-Mini S&Ps, but we'll trade each as though the other did not exist. If both vehicles were to reach their respective D targets, it would be as though there had been no bear market at all, just a garden-variety 15% correction. Considering what caused the stock market to collapse in the first place, and the fact that a deep recession is coming under the best of circumstances, the rally would be the most powerful -- and ridiculous -- short-squeeze in history. That, of course, is the purpose of short-squeezes -- in this case to persuade investors that they should never have doubted the advice of the shills and idiots who have been telling them to sit tight. It is predictable that the next leg down will be even more history-making than this psychotic rally. _______ UPDATE (Apr 7, 9:25 p.m.): If DIA falls to the green line (217.97), it would trigger a 'mechanical' buy signal. Stay tuned to the chat room if you're keen on trading this one. ______ UPDATE (Apr 8, 9:18 p.m.): DIA came nowhere near our niggardly 217.97 bid when it dipped slightly in the first hour. A minimum 250.35 is still where it's headed, but we'll have to keep looking for opportunities to get aboard. The next potential stumbling block is 239.56, the secondary Hidden Pivot.

The bounce from the March 23 low has recovered a third of the initial, 1196-point drop, but it failed at last week's peak to trigger a theoretical buy signal at 2572 by 10 points.  That wouldn't turn me bullish if it happens, since I expect the broad averages to fall to 1500 or lower on the next leg down. However, it would bring a neutral-to-slightly bullish bias to my swing- and day-trades. The futures in the meantime could fluctuate over a 600-point range (!) without saying much. That is the distance between the 2174 bottom and the midway point between the green-line trigger line and the midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance at 2971. This level is instinctual with me and unrelated to any rules we use to trade or forecast. More immediately, a midpoint support at 2374.13 that I flagged last week is still my minimum downside target for the near term. Here's a chart that shows it.

The stock market wafted last week into a psychologically surreal zone somewhere between terror and, if not greed, then at least jittery optimism. How can stocks rally at all when no one can predict whether the deadly spread of coronavirus is about to overwhelm America as it did Italy? The economic picture remains just as murky, since odds the global economy will fall into a full-blown depression are probably no better than 50-50 right now. Granted, two trillion dollars worth of consumer stimulus is bound to produce short-term benefits and a fleeting bounce on Wall Street. Were you aware that much of that money is in the form of loans that will allow employers to avoid laying off even a single worker? The loans are structured as gifts, and if you borrow a few million dollars now and don't furlough any employees, there's reportedly a good chance the debt will be forgiven. This effectively creates a months-long paid vacation for the idle at the expense of those who are working. Or perhaps not; for if those still on the job are not taxed at some point to pay for this epic giveaway, the money will have come, so to speak, from trees. To use another metaphor, it would be the torrent of helicopter money that Ben Bernanke famously asserted could prevent the U.S. economy from getting crushed by deflation. An Ethereal $88 Trillion Could halting the reversal of American's long run of prosperity be as simple as printing tons of money? I somehow doubt it. But I am still not quite ready to cede the endgame to the inflationists. For even if a series of bailouts injects as much as $2o trillion into the system, that would still be far less than the sum remaining to be deflated from the

AAPL looks like it will need to go lower for a running start to help Buffett and DaBoyz trigger off the next short-squeeze. If so, the 228.11 midpoint support shown in the chart will be an opportunity to try bottom-fishing. The pattern is too gnarly to attract the attention of the rabble, and the red-line support is nicely in the middle of nowhere. Accordingly, we'll look to buy Apr 9 calls for under 1.00 if the stock gets within 0.15 of the target. This may require going as high as the 250 or 252.5 strike.  Keep in mind that the calls will expire Thursday because markets will be closed on Good Friday. ______UPDATE (Apr 6, 9:37 p.m. EDT): Well, we knew all along that Buffett and DaBoyz weren't going to get hosed just because they own hundreds of billions of dollars' worth Apple and iPhone sales are headed for disaster. The way they fist-pumped the stock today through the 259.68 midpoint Hidden Pivot shown in this chart, there can be absolutely no doubt it is going to at least 282.45. I am still predicting a plunge to well below $100 before this bear market is over, but Apple shares are going to 282.45 first. _______ UPDATE (Apr 14, 8:04 a.m.): The stock has traded as high as 279.70 overnight, coming within 1% of the well-advertised target. When it reaches 282.45, AAPL will have rallied by exactly a third from the March 23 low of 212.61 and will lie just 13.8% from its all-time high, on Jan 28, of 327.90.  An opportune place, by my runes, for the Masters of the Universe to take the money and run. Please note that I've used a one-off 'A' to project the target, but if it's exceeded by more than 0.15-0.20, that would announce more

My colleague Bob Hoye saw a yield curve inversion that occurred in July as reason to prepare his subscribers for the stock market crash that has ensued. Every inversion since 1857 foretold a recession, suggesting that even without the pandemic, shares were headed for trouble. Still more concerning, he notes, is that the curve inverted twice this time, a rare and especially ominous event seen only in 1873, 1929 and 2007. These were all memorable years in the annals of economic ruin. Will we be fortunate enough to escape with something less this time? The next few weeks may hold the answer, but prayer couldn't hurt.

Traders looked beyond the two-week national ordeal that officials have diligently tried to prepare us for and evidently saw more ordeal further down the road.  The Dow dropped a thousand points on Wednesday, but there was no fear, just a mood swing back toward darkness. It will surely pass, at least briefly, but don't take that as a guarantee of a rally by week's end. I've projected much lower prices for stocks and expect the Dow to trade under 10,000 in search of a bear-market bottom perhaps two or three years from now.. We are all hearing so many scary personal stories these days that it's difficult to judge whether it is anecdotes that are collectively weighing down shares on a given day or more-arcane concerns, such as the central bank's extraordinary efforts to keep real estate paper from imploding. It is unavoidable that the tangible side of this problem -- the impending plunge in commercial and residential property values -- will make the Fed's death-defying paper-shuffling act seem like a relative walk in the park. Jim Grant, the most learned observer of interest rates around,  puts this grave problem in perspective in an interview posted at Dudley's Reports. Noted Grant, "If you can conjure, without adverse effects, trillions of dollars of new credit and everything is better because of that, net better, you know? Wow, I suppose we wish that had been discovered in the Iron Age. We would be a lot richer by now."

America is in the eye of the storm, hunkering down for what Mr. Trump promises will be a "very painful two weeks." Some may have gotten the impression that the economic pain could begin to ease then, but he was talking about the death toll and the rising count of infections. No one can say how long the economic fallout will continue, but the most optimistic estimate I've seen suggests the nation will lose perhaps a quarter year's production. If so, that seems manageable, especially when you add in the Fed's $2Tr rescue package and stepped-up unemployment benefits that in most cases will equal lost pay.  Fear seems to have ebbed from the stop market in the meantime, even if there is insufficient enthusiasm at the moment to push stocks into a sustained rally.

The bullion bankers' fright-mask tactics should have scared no one, since gold futures are obviously consolidating near the high end of March's astounding $250 swoon. My minimum upside objective is 1751.70, the secondary Hidden Pivot of the pattern shown, but any higher would portend more price expansion to at least 1852.00. I waxed skeptical here earlier that this rally could hit $2000, but because the demand for physical has begun to overwhelm supply, I am more optimistic that the move could get legs beyond my target.