Free

Minor and middling Hidden Pivot targets have shown little resistance to the rally, which has gained a steady 15-20 points a day mostly due to short-covering, low volume and the absence of dedicated sellers. Most immediately there is the 3012.50 target we've been using to keep us comfortably aligned with the trend. I still expect it to show some stopping power, but don't be shocked if it doesn't. Short there with a tight stop-loss, provided you've made money on the way to it. Above this 'hidden resistance' sits another target broached here earlier, an ambitious one at 3114.50. Like virtually every other major or minor rally target we've used over the years, it must be reckoned a shoe-in to be reached. But based purely on the look of the chart and the very labored penetration of the 2923 midpoint pivot, it would appear that an ascent to 3114.50 is not quite a done deal._______ UPDATE (Jul 10, 9:23 p.m. ET): The futures popped to a marginal new high at 3007.50, five points shy of our target. The shallow correction since suggests it will be reached soon, but any higher would put another at 3051.75 in play. (60-min, A= 2917.75 on 6/27). _______ UPDATE (Jul 14, 5:30 p.m.): The futures spent a remarkably boring Friday head-butting the 3012.50 target before short covering drove the September contract to close two points above it. This means the uptrend is likely to continue -- most immediately to at least 3029.75, the secondary pivot associated with the 3151.75 target.

I hesitate to use the word 'ominous', but the S&P 500 (shown here in ETF form) is close to generating a very bearish stochastic signal on the long-term chart. When ascending price peaks are matched by descending stochastic peaks, this is often a harbinger of trouble. In this case, there are not the usual two tops headed toward such a divergence, but three, each diverging relative to the other two. A simple way to interpret this is to say that the S&Ps have been unable to get as overbought with each successive, record peak. The implication is that traders/investors have grown less enthusiastic about buying as the S&Ps have achieved a series of record highs spaced weeks apart. What to Watch For The divergence would become menacing if the blue line were to roll down through the red line. This would occur if, over the next several weeks, each new price bar closes on successive Fridays toward the lower end of the bar as the S&Ps go higher or sideways. Alternatively, if the rally continues for a couple more weeks, with Friday closes toward the upper end of each bar, that would negate the divergence and turn the stochastic indicator benign (or at least in more felicitous agreement with the uptrend). We won't know for at least another 2-3 weeks which is about to occur, but because a third diverging peak could have such dire implications, the chart is worth monitoring closely. _______ UPDATE (Jul 14): Friday's close at the very top of last week's price bar diminished the odds of a bearish stochastic divergence like the one described above. Another strong close this week and the chart would look much less threatening.

August Gold pulled a Pearl Harbor on bears and skeptics Tuesday, reversing early morning weakness with a surprisingly sharp rally. I'd expected another two weeks of corrective action myself after bullion's impressive run-up in June. However, the chart (inset) shows the futures to be bound most immediately for at least 1446.90. If so, that would be a new recovery high and an encouraging sign that even bigger things lie ahead. Specifically, a 1504.00 target would be in play if the August contract closes for two consecutive days above 1444.40 or trades more than $12 above that price intraday. Please note as well that a $150 plunge from around 1460 would not be the disaster it might seem at the time; rather, it would set up a textbook buying opportunity according to the proprietary rules Rick's Picks subscribers follow for 'mechanical' trades. ______ UPDATE (Jul 7, 5:05 p.m. ET): Last week's surge peaked just shy of the 1444.40 midpoint resistance, implying that bulls have run out of steam for the moment. Here's a chart that shows it. The futures will still need to close above 1440,.00 for two straight days, or trade more than $12 above this Hidden Pivot intraday, in order to clinch a follow-through to 1504.00. In the meantime, there is no 'mechanical buy' set-up to use on the daily chart, since the rally topped well below our sweet spot before the pullback. _______ UPDATE (Jul 10, 9:29 p.m.): The futures are in the third week of the correction I'd forecast above, seemingly eager to break out of a 60-point consolidation range. The pivot at 1444.40 remains crucial to the completion of this task.

August Gold pulled a Pearl Harbor on bears and skeptics Tuesday, reversing early morning weakness with a surprisingly sharp rally. I'd expected another two weeks of corrective action myself after bullion's impressive run-up in June. However, the chart (inset) shows the futures to be bound most immediately for at least 1446.90. If so, that would be a new recovery high and an encouraging sign that even bigger things lie ahead. Specifically, a 1504.00 target would be in play if the August contract closes for two consecutive days above 1444.40 or trades more than $12 above that price intraday. Please note as well that a $150 plunge from around 1460 would not be the disaster it might seem at the time; rather, it would set up a textbook buying opportunity according to the proprietary rules Rick's Picks subscribers follow for 'mechanical' trades. ______ UPDATE (Jul 7, 5:05 p.m. ET): Last week's surge peaked just shy of the 1444.40 midpoint resistance, implying that bulls have run out of steam for the moment. Here's a chart that shows it. The futures will still need to close above 1440,.00 for two straight days, or trade more than $12 above this Hidden Pivot intraday, in order to clinch a follow-through to 1504.00. In the meantime, there is no 'mechanical buy' set-up to use on the daily chart, since the rally topped well below our sweet spot before the pullback.

We have a sequence of rally targets at 205.51, 209.18 and 216.08 to keep us in stride with the bullish herd, but there's an alternative picture that deserves caution. Notice that AAPL has rallied back to the green line after falling beneath the midpoint Hidden Pivot support at 174.20, producing a valid signal to get short 'mechanically' at 194.75 (stop 215.31). The signal is weak, however, because the dip to around 170 did not quite get down to our sweet spot near 164, and that's why I am not recommending the trade. Regardless, the signal itself is reason not to get too comfortable with the idea that a push toward 2018's record high at 233 is inevitable. _______ UPDATE (Jul 8, 3:44 p.m. ET): Friday's 205.08 high came within a millimeter of the first of our three targets, 205.51, so consider it fulfilled. AAPL underscored the accuracy and importance of the target by plummeting $7 since. _______ UPDATE (Jul 22, 6:30 p.m.): A short-squeeze popped the stock above a tedious accumulation range, and it should now be presumed bound for at least 209.18, the second target in the sequence identified here more than three weeks ago. Keep in mind the each can be used to initiate a tightly stopped short. _______ UPDATE (Jul 30, 10:38 p.m.): DaBoyz have outdone themselves tonight, goosing the stock senseless with a short squeeze that has easily surpassed an otherwise impenetrable peak at 215.31 made on May 1. Give them lots of credit, since this is a task that mere bulls could never have accomplished, and it has cleared the path to eventual new-record highs.

The lunatics are back, pushing bitcoin with the same psychotic zeal they showed blowing the 2017 bubble. I am updating with a new target at 21,032 that is based on a slightly revised rally pattern (inset). Judging from the way buyers impaled the pattern's 12083 midpoint resistance today, it seems extremely unlikely this surge will fall short of the target. I try to avoid the use of the word 'extremely', but in this case my confidence that 21,032 will be achieved is close to absolute. When I originally projected a move to 19,850, BRTI, a CME index that tracks bid/asked spreads in real time across many bitcoin markets, was trading for around 8,000. That was a little more than a week ago, and I could not have imagined at the time that we'd be halfway there so soon. I doubt that BRTI will cover the remaining distance as quickly, but if it does, it will describe a mania with a lifespan more meaningfully measured with a stopwatch than a calendar. If the Hidden Pivot resistance at 21,032 fails to stop the stampede -- and I do NOT expect this resistance to give way easily, if at all --  I'll be out of good targets to share with you._______ UPDATE (Jun 27, 5:23 p.m.): Finally, a correction painful enough to rebuke bulls, especially if it lasts for a few more days. They'll be back, for sure, but many are undoubtedly hanging on, or buying the dip, in expectation of the next explosive rally. They have little to fear if my 21,032 target is to be reached, a prospect that I regard as 90% likely. In the meantime, if the pullback continues to 7609 (shown as a green line in this chart), that would trigger a very enticing 'mechanical' buy, stop 3133,

August Gold's attempt to reverse from a morning sell-off prompted a subscriber to ask in the Rick's Picks trading room whether bullion is already getting second wind.  I doubt it, since June's sensational run-up was too steep to sustain and will likely require a breather of perhaps 2-3 weeks to recharge. But I do expect the uptrend to resume after a proper pullback because this month's surge decisively exceeded clear Hidden Pivot resistances at 1412 and 1432. This is usually a reliable sign that the dominant trend will continue, and it is quite clear in this instance.  Because the pattern took ten months to play out, it would be surprising -- and quite bullish -- if the futures do a '180' and blow past the 1432.70 peak within the next few days. Anything's possible, so we'll simply wait for gold to do its thing and to tell us what's on its mind. _______ UPDATE (Jul 1, 7:16 p.m. ET): Expect more weakness, since the futures failed to get airborne after tripping a 'counterintuitive' buy signal. Most immediately they could fall to around 1340.00 before picking up structural support from some prior lows recorded in mid-June. But if you want a precise Hidden Pivot target where a tradeable low is possible, use 1356.30 (60-minute, a=1427.80 on 6/27; b=1384.70). 

(Test) A homebuilder friend of mine who is also a stock-market junkie and savvy trader emailed me a dismal-looking chart of Lennar Tuesday with this bearish note: "The homies have spoken. Get short [the stock market] or miss the down move." This guy can boast of months when he made more money presciently trading the shares of Lennar, Beazer, D.R. Horton, Pulte et al. than he did from his high-powered construction job. He even managed to tune out habitually upbeat talk in the board room and executive washroom for long enough to clean up on last year's collapse in lumber prices.  And that is why I do not take his trading tips lightly. However, in this case the evidence he presents is so seductive that I am inclined do the opposite -- i.e., embrace the seemingly absurd possibility of an imminent upsurge in residential construction. The very idea flouts my gut feeling that America will be in recession before the year ends. Matching Epaulets And yet, study Lennar's chart (inset) and you can easily imagine a reverse head-and-shoulders pattern taking shape with the power to launch Lennar, and presumably other 'homies', significantly higher within the next four to six weeks.  I have never put much store in H&S patterns because they are virtually everywhere a trader wants to see them. But this one, with drooping epaulets that look like perfectly matched earrings, is so alluring as to confound the skeptic. We'll probably know by mid-July whether the chart was warning of trouble or throbbing with opportunity. In the meantime, if we get another month of declining home sales, don't scoff at the possibility of a trampoline bounce-from-nowhere in this statistic. _______ UPDATE (Jul 1, 7:27 p.m.): If bulls are going to turn the stock around, their best opportunity will come

Here are three numbers to jot down to get an accurate and potentially useful 'read' on the aging bull market: 27,436, 28,738 and 33,161. These are 'Hidden Pivot' resistance targets for the Dow Industrials, and any one of them could stop the bull in its tracks. Each is a good place to attempt getting short with a tight stop-loss, but if the stop gets pulped, assume that the next-higher target is in play.  And if the Indoos should hit 29,000 (or so) and then plummet to the green line (24,5740), treat that not as a sign that the long-awaited bear has finally arrived, but as a great buying opportunity. Above 33,161, I have no additional targets to offer. That would be the bull's final charge, as far as I'm concerned, and the best opportunity to get short that we might see in a very long while. Why should you trust these numbers? For one, if you've followed Rick's Picks for any length of time, you'll know that the big-picture forecasts -- for T-Bonds, gold, the U.S. dollar, interest rates,  inflation (or lack of, actually)  and major stock averages -- have gotten it mostly right.  (But not always, as those of you still waiting for crude to hit $28 a barrel would be ready to attest.)  Another reason is that these sunny numbers come not from a hopped up permabull who thinks that decade-old rally will go on forever; rather, they are from someone who could give you a dozen good reasons why the Dow should be trading at 10,000 now, not heading toward 30,000 as would appear to be the case. _______ UPDATE (Jul 16, 8:30 p.m.): Tuesday's high came within an inch of our longstanding target at 27,436, the first of three important stair-step Hidden Pivots. Let's see how