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Stories about San Francisco's death appear to have been exaggerated. I arrived there Saturday for a five-week stay, a getaway from Florida's insufferable summer heat. It didn't take me long to recall why, at age 28, I came to San Francisco and stayed until I was 50. For one, the weather rarely turns hot, even when the rest of the country is sweltering.  And on those rare occasions when a heat wave descends on the city, there is always an ocean of fog lurking just outside the Golden Gate, ready to pour onto the streets whenever high temperatures linger for more than a few days. It was an invigorating 65 degrees when I stepped off a JetBlue plane at SFO on Saturday morning. I'd departed Ft. Lauderdale shortly after sunrise with the thermostat already climbing into the mid-80s and humidity approaching steam-bath levels. Arriving in San Francisco was like encountering the crystal blue ice of a Norwegian fjord. I was greeted by an old friend who has been a player for decades on the periphery of the commercial real estate market. He contends that most of the negative press the city gets is just flackery employed by developers to drive down prices. Not only have they succeeded at this, they have begun to seed long-neglected warehouse districts with large sums of money, turning them into magnets for tech entrepreneurs, residential developers, skilled tradesmen and mostly-Asian workers who earn $300,000 or more per year with their extraordinary STEM skills. So many luxury apartments have sprung up to house these young whizzes that I didn't realize at first that I was in my old Portrero Hill neighbohood, which sits literally on the other side of the railroad tracks, about a mile south of downtown San Francisco. Eldorado's Infrastructure The drive took us

TLT is taking its sweet old time getting airborne, and even surmounting the small distance remaining to p=96.42 cannot be assumed. The last upward stab failed to take out any external peaks, and that is an additional factor to consider. My gut feeling is that the October 2023 low at 82.42 was a major one and that it will endure for the foreseeable future. Regardless, we'll need to see a strong push past p=96.42 the first time buyers encounter it in order to infer that the D target at 105.49 is likely to be achieved.

Bertie slightly overshot  the D target of a corrective pattern on the weekly chart, and so I've retained my focus on a somewhat bearish picture, albeit one that is merely corrective.  The implied, minimum downside target is p2=49,246, and this vehicle would trigger a 'mechanical' short if the current uptrend hits the green line (x=65,609). we'll know before then how likely this is, since a decisive upside pentration of 61,460 would be bullish. It would also shift our minimun upside target for the near term to 69,161. Both of those Hidden Pivot resistances can be found on the weekly chart, where (reverse) a=56,519 on May 3.

I've used a conservative projection even though GDXJ broke out last week, scuttling a bearish reverse pattern.  It nearly touched the 47.98 rally target on Friday, although there's room to 48.29 if you slide 'A' down a tad.  The very shallow retracement that occurred after the top was recorded early in the session is mildly bullish, but the selling would need to continue down to 47.19 to generate a bearish impulse leg on the 5-minute chart.  It would be a minor signal, but it can nonetheless serve sa a hair-trigger warning  of trouble. _______ UPDATE (Jul 16, 6:28 p.m.): Bulls have trashed enough hardy obstacles lately that it's time to shift our focus to a much bigger picture that projects as high as 72.23. Notice that GDXJ ended the week precisely at the most crucial spot on the weekly chart, p=49.02. Let's see what happens before we make an important judgment.

The dollar got hit hard on Thursday, but the weekly chart shown in the thumbnail inset puts it in perspective. DXY has been scuddling sideways since December, and there is scant evidence it will break out of the approximately five-point range in which  it has spent most of 2024. It would pick up voodoo-number support 90 cents below, at 103.18, but sellers would have to pound it through p=100.57 to create even a hint of trouble.  Regardless, D=93.78 is theoretically in play, so we should keep close track of lesser abcd patterns to determine which way the wind is blowing. _______ UPDATE (July 28): Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

August Crude remains on track for a rendezvous with the bullish target shown, 86.66. It might require a wrenching pullback first, and so I'll mention that the red line (p=79.55) could be bought 'mechanically' with a theoretical stop-loss at 77.18. That would risk nearly $10k on four contracts initially, so we'll need to come up with an appropriate 'camouflage" strategy if the opportunity materializes. _______ UPDATE (Jul 19): Crude took a pounding toward the end of the week and now looks like it could bottom lower than where I'd initially predicted. Use p2=78.77 of this pattern as a minimum downside projection for now. You can also attempt to bottom-fish there with a reverse pattern and 'camouflage' trigger. That means executing the trade using a trigger from a chart of small degree. _______ UPDATE (Jul 23, 8:56 a.m.): With today's power dive, crude is about to bottom at or near d=76.26, the Hidden Pivot target I flagged yesterday in the chatoom when I swapped this contract for the August.  Here's the updated chart.

The futures closed effortlessly above a 5606 'hidden' resistance that was not exactly chopped liver, so we should infer they are now bound for at least 5678.50, the Hidden Pivot target shown in the chart. It is theoretically shortable, especially if you know how to craft a risk-averse, camouflage 'trigger,' but your trading bias should be bullish until the target is reached. A pullback to the red line (p=5473.00) can be bought 'mechanically', stop 5405.50, but I don't expect Mr Market to gift us with such a generous buying opportunity. _______ UPDATE (July 10, 5:30 p.m.): Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!  Here's an unconventional pattern with a 5879.50 target that will ave to be treated as viable because it's all we've got at the moment. Trade with a bullish bias until it is reached, or don't trade at all.  Yes, the rally could fail at p2=5726, but I wouldn't want to put ideas in your head.

If T-Bonds continue their hellish slide into the abyss, this ETF proxy for long-dated Treasurys should be hitting 70 around election time. So much for Wall Street's misplaced "hopes" for a helping hand from the Federal Reserve. That won't stop speculation, every time the Open Market Committee meets, that perhaps a smidgen of easing is coming toward the end of 2024.  Will they never learn?  Europe's moribund economies desperately need a global monetary blowout to revive the illusion of growth, but Powell isn't playing ball. Tom Luongo thinks they will stir up a banking crisis this fall in order to scare Powell into complicity. Under the circumstances, it's hard to imagine that they won't try this. If the crisis is scary enough to cause Powell to capitulate, the Davos crowd may regret getting what they wished for,

Last week's descent to the green line (x=105.03) has triggered a 'mechanical' buy there that rates a 6.4 on a 1 to 10 scale. That means the trade looks moderately appealing and has an approximately  64% chance of rallying to at least p=106.07 before DXY could dip below C=103.99, stopping out the pattern.  A return to p would not necessarily be the end of the bull cycle begun from 100.62 last December, but the dollar could still spend months in tedium with little progress in either direction.