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  [The author of this week's commentary is an old friend who worked his way up from exchange-floor clerk to commercial real estate mogul over the time I've known him. He has demonstrated remarkable timing, courage and patience as an investor, buying commercial real estate at the bottom of the 2007-08 crash and holding it until two years ago, when an even bigger crash that shows no sign of abating began. He also started accumulating a large position in physical silver as it fell from around $30 in early 2021 to $17 a year-and-a-half later. He recently cashed out his entire position at upwards of $33 an ounce, roughly doubling his stake. Now he is striking out in a radical new direction, deploying a large portion of his sizable gains in the most unpopular investment of the day, Treasury paper. Although no investor is infallible, my friend has never had a misstep with a series of all-in bets. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, Comex Gold has fallen nearly $60 after coming within $1.60 of a 2803.40 target I started drum-rolling in September, when prices were $300 lower. Is the top in?  It's too early to tell, but even if higher prices are coming, anyone who has held bullion during its steep run-up since last October could not go far wrong by taking a partial profit at these levels. RA ]  Each time a massive wealth transfer occurs, it is caused not by an upward explosion in asset prices, but by crushing deflation such as we experienced in 2007-8.  It's about to happen again, and not with a puny, garden-variety bear-market or recession, but with the epic crash that we have all known was coming sooner or later. The list of possible catalysts boggles the imagination, to wit: a politically wrenching transition

You can always tell when portfolio managers are hard at play, immersed in an epic circle jerk that has become more tediously familiar with each passing week. And so it went on Friday, as money migrated for no discernible reason from certain, temporarily disfavored stocks to flavor-of-the-day hotties.  It seemed almost as though the chimpanzees who purport to manage everyone's money were on a conference call that morning, scripting a narrative simple enough for Jim Cramer to shill to the legions of widows and pensioners addicted to his show. The Dow was down more than 300 points at its lows, even as the lunatic-sector stocks -- you know them as the idiotically misnamed 'Magnificent Seven' -- winked at the thrashing their poor cousins were getting on less sexy exchanges.  The Naz was borne aloft as always by light volume and timid resistance. Bears evidently were too gutless to resist the uptrend, which in recent weeks has become increasingly confident of a Trump victory. 4% Above Sits Trouble Even so, there is a palpable feeling that the stock market has been nutso for so long that it's overdue for a sea change. That could mean irrational exuberance will peak on or around election day. But Mr Market could also surprise with a rally that turns even steeper than the one that has prop-washed the flesh from sane observers and skeptics. So which? The chart above makes a compelling case for something in-between. The 6102 S&P target lies 256 points, or 4.4%, above Friday's close. It would not be as large a gain in points as occurred in August or September. However, if the top were to coincide with the November 5 election, the entire gain would have occurred in just seven trading days. That looks like a good bet, but I

Last Wednesday's low at 91.66 triggered the 'mechanical' buy that had been noted in the previous tout. Simultaneously, a second such buy signal occurred at the green line (x=93.21) of this smaller pattern. It carries a commensurately smaller stop-loss, but we'll back away from the trade nonetheless, since the pullback to x came after TLT had barely reached the red line. Ideally, the retracement for a 'mechanical' set-up should come from our 'sweet spot', which lies midway between p and p2.

The Dollar Index didn't so much impale the 103.11 midpoint resistance last week as overwhelm it. This shortens the odds of DXY's achieving our 106.06 target (slightly revised) over the next 3–4 months. It is encouraging to see gold performing so well despite the pressure of a strong dollar, but also scary to imagine the implications this might hold for so deeply troubled a geopolitical world. A clear implication is that Treasury bonds and notes, not wildly popular lately, continue to be a promising place to secure one's savings. ______ UPDATE (Oct 27): Last week's steep rally pushed the Dollar Index toward the 106.06 target much more quickly than I might have expected. If bulls exceed it easily, you can be sure that a test of two important peaks near 107 that were recorded in the past year near is coming.

The futures looked like a good bet at the bell on Friday to hit the 5957.00 target shortly after trading resumes this week.  The pattern shown has generated two winning bull trades so far, both at the green line, leaving one more prospective opportunity for the hat trick: a short from the 5957.00 target. It looks too obvious to work precisely, and even if it does, the Hidden Pivot resistance will not likely slow the Trump Express for long. Buyers took on a more significant 'hidden' resistance at 5868.50 last week and not only impaled it, they closed the December contract above it, all but guaranteeing more of the same.

The 4.06% midpoint resistance shown in the chart has failed to stop the rate rise begun from 3.60% in September.  The uptrend has been munching through this Hidden Pivot for the last week, clearing the way for a presumptive push to p2=4.29% and possibly to 4.52%. That may be good news for the dollar, but not for those who owe dollars, since repayment will become more difficult in real terms. It is worse than that, actually, since waning inflation will effectively raise the real rate and therefore the burden of all debts incurred in dollars.

Friday's surge surpassed minor Hidden Pivot targets with such ease that there's little doubt December Silver will achieve the 37.485 target shown in the inset. The pattern is a degree smaller than the one presented here last week, which showed a 37.249 objective tracing back to the start of the covid hoax in March 2020. Although price action at p has been less than decisive, the fact that the rally provided no opportunity to buy a pullback to x=29.535 'mechanically' further implies the target(s) will be reached.

Notice that crude at a current $68 per barrel has made no upward progress in nearly 20 years. Adjusting for inflation, producers have taken a big hit. However, the quadrupling of oil prices in the early 1970s left them with a base price that ensured that no Saudi prince would ever go begging for a fleet of Lamborghinis in every color of the rainbow. Although the pattern shown is bullish and allows for a move to $125, or even to $187 (!), we have little to gain speculating on when prices might break out of the constipated, $30 range that has confined them for the last three years.  Crude oil, the largest, most politically rigged market in the known universe, is, to repeat, 'just a trade'. ______ UPDATE (Oct 27): And what about prices breaking downward? This will depend on when a global financial bust that has been postponed since the S&L crisis of the early 1990s comes barreling along. There is no predicting when this will occur, but when it finally does, it will crush demand for oil, along with its price. For now, though, even when prices are falling, they are relatively strong, considering that China's economy has gone slack. Their demand for fuel is what sets oil's price at the margin, One could infer that it is mainly incalculable geopolitical risks that have kept the price of crude from crashing, and bears from amassing large short positions.

Wall Street has gone all-in for Trump, piling up such extravagant gains in the last few weeks that one might wonder what bold miracles investors expect of him. More likely, unfortunately, is that within a year or two of taking office, he will be overwhelmed by the collapse of a financial bubble that required only the hubris of America's promised return to greatness to set it in motion. Let's hope Mr. Trump gets a chance to clean house first, since Washington is a rat's nest of corruption and plots to bring down America. In the meantime, there is no arguing that the rampaging stock market has got it wrong in predicting that Harris, along with the malignant political philosophy and crackpot schemes she represents, will be overwhelmingly repudiated by voters on November 5. With a gusher of mail-in ballots already pouring in and millions of illegals ready to lend their signatures to the Democrats, it could take weeks or longer to adjudicate the results. Regardless, Trump is riding a wave so powerful that even if the Democrats double the cheating that won them the White House in 2020, they will still come up short. Liberals should listen to Harris's recent interview on Fox with Bret Baier to understand why she can't possibly win. She comes across as so empty and insipid that a conservative could almost wax nostalgic for Hillary's evil cunning and brass cojones. 'A Small Price to Pay' The biggest problem Trump will inherit lies in the Middle East, not Ukraine. He and Putin are neither friends nor enemies but seem to respect each other. This cannot be said of jihadis Trump must confront and what remains of their leadership. Israel has wiped out the terrorists' command structure, and we should expect them to try desperately to settle