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We should know soon whether Silver's mini-explosion upward, the second in three months, is just another false start.  From a Hidden Pivot perspective, the selloff of the last two weeks is not as bearish as it seems.  It triggered an attractive 'mechanical' buy on Monday when it touched the green line (x=86.95). This implies that a bounce will reach p=89.91, at least, before it can stop out bulls with a dip beneath c=85.00. Whether it can muster a finishing stroke to d=92.81 depends on how easily buyers penetrate p on the next rally. _______ UPDATE (May 18, 12:50 a.m.): Bulls held on by a hair when TLT dipped last week to a bottom just 20 cents from the 85.00 point 'c' low of the ostensibly bullish pattern detailed above.  _______ UPDATE (May 25): TLT popped a wheelie at an 83.66 voodoo support, but don't expect the bounce to get legs. The low occurred just inches shy of a chasm beneath the watershed low recorded in October 2023 at 82.42. It is too obvious a place for a good bottom to form, nor do T-Bonds much respect 'technical'  tops and bottoms. For now, all we can do is watch.

[The S&Ps are losing steam after recouping two-thirds of their 1400-point loss in March/April. The stall near 5700 has left them hovering in the danger zone, just like the U.S. economy. Will it skirt recession? I have my doubts, even if price action on the S&P chart on April 7 led me to speculate that business would continue to hum along. The index had bottomed slightly above an important Hidden Pivot target at 4820, and so it was no stretch to infer that this may have marked the end of the bear market. Without the chart, though, it's hard for me to imagine that America will skate past recession. A real estate crash is coming, and it's only a matter of time before its mounting weight overwhelms whatever miracles people expect from Trump. His tariff announcements, to the extent they can be construed as bullish for stocks, have lost their ability to affect securities markets for more than an hour or two. He did a deal with Great Britain last week, spinning it as the first of many.  That story will not distract anyone from the only deal that matters, however -- with China. No one could be optimistic that President Xi Jinping will be an easy touch, so don't be surprised if stocks take a header this week. Meanwhile, the commentary below will continue to run until an S&P breach of 4820 proves my bullish thesis wrong. RA ] *** A word of advice if you’re looking for bankable information on the direction of the economy:  tune out the mainstream media’s cavalcade of Trump-deranged bozos and focus on the 4820 target in the SPX chart above. Think of it as Trump’s lucky number, but also a very good place for these all-too-interesting times to find temporary equilibrium. That is

The slimeballs who manipulate this stock for a living made full use of a short-squeeze opportunity when Microsoft announced earnings after Wednesday's close that unsurprisingly surpassed estimates. What could bears have been thinking?? DaBoyz kicked off the celebration with a $40 rally after the close, then worked their criminal magic again on Friday's opening to hoist the stock a further $10.  Realize that no stock changed hands during the spectacular first stage of this maneuver, and only a relative handful of shares traded on the second. The result was an approximately $317 billion contribution to the financial realm's gaseous 'wealth effect'.  Most of it came in mere nanoseconds, since that's how long it takes to create an enormous gap on a chart. This is a feat that mere bullish buying could never have hoped to achieve. It required mainly the arrant stupidity of shorts, who dependably acted as though the risk of getting blown out of the water was negligible. If I had to guess where MSFT, financialization's chief instrument for adding fake money to the system, is headed, I'd say to xxx.xx.  I don't want to queer the bold, Hidden Pivot magic of this number, so I'll post it only in the chat room.

A faint glimmer of hope appeared last week with DXY's subtle poke through the 'd' target of a minor reverse pattern.  It isn't much to celebrate, but the fact that the rally even made it to 'D' implies something may have changed, since the last time this modest feat succeeded was almost a year ago. To gauge its significance, we'll need to monitor retracement patterns closely, since they should have trouble exceeding p if the dominant trend has in fact changed.  The first in evidence, on the 30-minute chart, not only exceeded p, it topped at the 'd' target of a minor rABC on Friday (a=99.70 on 5/1 at 7:30 a.m.).

I used a tiny one-off high to draw the pattern shown, but three confirmations at p suggest it will produce only winning outcomes for us. That would imply that a drop to D=3174.50 should be bought aggressively, albeit with the obligatory micro-stop possible using a 'camo' trigger. One thing the chart does NOT say is that June Gold will necessarily reach the target, since the initial penetration of the midpoint Hidden Pivot was anything but decisive. Notice, however, that it delivered a profitable 'mechanical' short - three of them, actually - and that's usually a tip-off that D/d will be reached. We don't much trade 'conventional' patterns any longer, but this one, with its crazy point 'a' and asymmetry, seemed ripe for exploitation. _______ UPDATE Apr 6, 5:52 p.m.): As the chart makes crystal-clear, June Gold is headed most immediately to 3472.7, the ‘midpoint Hidden Pivot’ of the pattern shown. It can be shorted there, but only with a delicate stop-loss, since the futures will be on their way to 3736.00 in a trice if they blow past the midpoint resistance without hesitation. You could always try shorting up there, but wouldn’t it be far better to shove your accursed doubts aside for once and catch an almost certain 300-point rally?   

GDXJ is just an inch from touching down at the 57.53 Hidden Pivot target shown. The pattern looks too obvious to work precisely, but it is also sufficiently compelling to all but guarantee a tradable turn from somewhere near 57.53.  This usually means that catching the low on a chart of lesser degree will endure a stop-out or two before the vehicle reverses and does what it is supposed to do: make you money. A decisive penetration of 'd', especially on first contact, would be quite discouraging, but I doubt we'll see it. _______ UPDATE (Apr 6): I first mentioned a 72.23 target two months ago when GDXJ was trading in the mid-50s.  The target still looks all but certain to be achieved, especially with the recent breach of a 64.23 midpoint Hidden Pivot associated with an even higher target at 111.59 (!)   Further attesting to the power of the rally, the thrust exceeded the watershed high at 65.95 recorded in August 2020.  Although a stall at 72.23 should be expected, GDXJ would be signaling a potentially ballistic move to 111.59 if it punches through the lower resistance easily.  The pattern yielding these targets is compelling, implying that a top of some importance could occur at 111.59. Here is the graph I'm using to get a confident handle on this vehicle. The data go back to 2009, the year in which GDXJ was listed.

The unconventional pattern shown implies that TNX would be a short if it  rises to 4.42%.  This means interest rates on the 10-Year Note could be at or near a cyclical top at that level. If we treat the graph as we would any other, a fist-pump through c=4.59% would imply that rates are about to rise sharply. But if the 'mechanical' aspect of the trade works the way it's supposed to, rates could be on their way down to as low as 3.90% if they reverse at 4.42%.

[We are coming up on a month since I blew 'Taps' for a bear market that supposedly was just starting. There was panic in the air that Sunday because America's enemies in Brussels were dumping T-Bonds in an attempt to crash the market. They were intent on forcing Powell to ease, but their plan failed when he stood firm.  The S&Ps dove several hundred points, but instead of continuing into the abyss, they turned from within a hair of a major target at 4820 that I'd billboarded in Rick's Picks. From this, I inferred that the bear market had seen its worst and that there would be no recession, nor any lasting, destructive effects from the tariff war. This prediction seemed outrageous at the time, and perhaps even moreso now, since Canada, America's biggest trading partner, has just elected a leftist who wants to go to war with the U.S. rather than kowtow to Trump's demands. I wish them good luck - and China, too - since curtailing business with the U.S. will send their respective economies into a death spiral. Europe's economy is already dying, and they, too, will eventually have to come around. If the U.S. doesn't sink into recession itself, Trump stands to win it all. The recession would not be due to supposedly falling GDP, which, in the context of reduced government spending is a meaningless heap of statistical manure, but because bear markets happen, and U.S. stocks may already be in the grip of one.  That is notwithstanding what I've written below - my commentary from several weeks ago, when stocks failed to crash.  I will run it every week until the S&Ps prove my thesis wrong by relapsing decisively below 4820.  If and when that happens, it will be time for Katie to bar

June Crude has tripped a moderately appealing 'mechanical' buy signal, but we'll use it to get our bearings rather than try for a quick score. Pullbacks to the green line from the secondary Hidden Pivot (p2=63.66) are riskier to buy 'mechanically', at least for a move back to the target, but the set-up is often good for a one-level ride, in this case from 57.67 to 60.66. It's too late to jump aboard, since the futures are already trading above x=57.67. Still, I'll suggest observing what happens next to familiarize yourselves with the trade and the opportunity big retracements can create..04