T-Bonds have been treading water since Trump took office. His eagerness to stimulate growth with a gusher of fiscal spending and consumer credit has increasingly weighed on fixed-income markets. However, this has been more or less offset by the President's ability to attract buyers of Treasury debt from outside the U.S. The chart says this precarious balance is about to end with a fall in bond prices and a corresponding rise in long-term yields. At a minimum, TLT is headed down to the red line, a midpoint Hidden Pivot support at 78.05. If yields on the long bond were to rise commensurately, they would hit 5.33%, up from a current 4.79%. That might not seem like much, but it would squeeze the last breath from a consumer economy already suffocating from debt fatigue and persistent inflation. The already shaky housing and auto sectors would collapse, presumably led by a stock market that is filled mostly with hot air. Nor are there any guarantees that the red line on the chart will hold. If it doesn't, and TLT falls to the next logical plateau at 62.23, the damage this would do to the U.S. economy and to our way of life is distressing to imagine. Any spike in rates would be short-lived, since it would quickly deflate the economy into deep recession. Since this would be fundamentally a deleveraging event, investors should not be looking for opportunities at this moment; rather, they should secure their capital in safe-haven assets such as Treasury paper, bullion and utility companies with strong dividend histories. The burgeoning healthcare sector's ability to withstand hard times is not a given, since it thrives now only on the illusion of prosperity. _______ UPDATE (Dec 14): Friday's vicious reversal, which featured the gap-down penetration of a 'hidden' midpoint support,
Microsoft spent the last two days of the week churning a weak 'mechanical' buy signal. It is considered weak because the pullback to the green line where we typically do our buying followed a high along c-d that barely reached the midpoint Hidden Pivot, let alone the 'sweet spot' midway between p and p2. How the stock treats the signal has consequences for the broad averages, since the company trades with a value of around $3.6 trillion. If MSFT dips below c=464.89 without punching through p, that would add to the evidence that stocks are in a bear market. _______ UPDATE (December 14): Traders and the, um, 'investment community' spent the week screwing the pooch, so nothing has changed in the analysis above. _______ UPDATE (Dec 20): Another week of merciless pooch-screwing left MSFT undeserving of our attention. There is little to see or predict here, folks, so let's move along to the next exhibit
Last week's tedious scuddle left the futures on-track for a run-up to at least 4347.30 over the near-term. This Hidden Pivot resistance is just a weigh station en route to the 4529.80 target of a much larger pattern given here earlier. The D target of that pattern is 5126.10, the first I've identified above $5k. I expect potentially tradable resistance at 4347.30, but if buyers punch through it easily, that would shorten the odds of an eventual move to the higher targets given above.
Although Bitcoin ended the week in a mild selloff, it occurred in the context of a bullish cycle begun two weeks ago from 80,526. The correction would need to hit d=84,819 to set up an attractive buy, and a run-up in the meantime to x=91,840 would trigger a 'mechanical' short. This would be a one-level trade with p=89,500 as the profit goal, although that doesn't rule out additional downside to p2=87,160, or even to d=84,819 over the very near term. _______ UPDATE (Dec 8, 12:12 p.m.): The short sale detailed above worked out nicely and could have been covered this morning for an overnight profit of around $2,300. As expected, Sunday's rally was short-lived and exceeded the green line by just 0.4% before receding to within a hair of p=89,500. The recommendation was explicitly detailed and, presumably, clear enough for any subscriber to have done the trade. Any reports?
When a correction fails to reach its 'D' target as could occur here, it implies the dominant trend, a 16-year-old bull market, will continue. MSFT could still relapse to d=431.89, but we'll give bulls the benefit of the doubt for now with a rally projection to at least 526.24. That's the 'd' target of a pattern on the weekly chart begun on 9/5/25 from 492.37, and it will become an odds-on bet to be achieved when the stock pops though 495.57, a midpoint resistance that comes from the same pattern.
This is the first chart I've drawn that projects a gold price above $5000/oz. The pattern is probably too obvious to work precisely, but that won't negate its ability to keep us confidently on the right side of the trend. A theoretical buy signal has already been signaled with the thrusts through the green line (x=4234.40). However, we can't know how likely the 5126.10 target is to be achieved until we've seen buyers interacts with the midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance at 4529.79. For now, we can use it as a minimum upside projection. As always, a decisive move through p, and particularly a close above it, would shorten the odds of a continuation to D.
Like UFOs and Bigfoot, far more bear market sightings are imagined than real. I thought I'd spotted Papa Bear myself when Nvidia announced terrific earnings a couple of weeks ago, only to see their shares reverse and dive sharply after a deceptive spike higher. Was this the needle prick that burst the AI bubble? It certainly seemed like it; for it was not merely plausible, but logical, given that Wall Street and the entire investment world were desperately counting on a single company, albeit a $5 trillion one, to turn sagging markets around. They got their wish, but it was a delayed reaction that must have spooked many investors. Stocks plunged for several days after the announcement before catching a bottom and reversing steeply. Your editor was one of the non-believers who were certain stocks had entered a bear market that was long overdue. It wasn't just Nvidia's performance, either. Trump's fortunes, if not to say his very credibility, seemed to be ebbing, in part because his nemesis Epstein was creeping back into the headlines. The President was uncharacteristically back on his heels, seemingly in synch with falling stocks. But within a few days, NVDA appeared to be basing, Trump was masterfully diverting the news media toward a possible peace pact between Russia and Ukraine, and stocks were in a steep recovery. It was sufficiently ferocious to seem like a classical bear rally, and that's what I assumed it was -- until, that is, in just three days, the broad averages had already maneuvered to within easy distance of new highs. That was on Friday, and there's no point pretending the rally is a fake, destined to end with a whimper. Place Your Bets I continue to believe, nonetheless, that stocks are in a topping process. However, a bear market
A minor rally target posted in the chat room on Wednesday caught Friday's spike high within 0.04%, but there's more rally room to at least 94,155 once Bitcoin completes its pullback. The whipsaw reversal to the downside shaved nearly $3,000 from the peak price in under three hours, underscoring the nasty volatility that occurs in this vehicle between swing highs and lows that have been precisely predictable. For those who trade BTC over the weekend, look for a reversal from 89,980 to leverage. Be aware, however, that a decisive breach of this midpoint Hidden Pivot support (15m, a= 92,804 on 11/28) could send Bitcoin down to at least 88,688 in search of traction. _______ UPDATE (Nov 30, 7:30 p.m.): Bitcoin's slide through the 'hidden' supports given above implies more slippage to 86,884. If that Hidden Pivot gives way, the next support would be at 83,746, and thence 80,607. _______ UPDATE (Dec 1, 8:52 p.m.): The low of today's plunge came within 54 points, or six-hundredths of one percent, of the 83,746 target given above. The lowest number in the sequence, 80,607, remains valid as a minimum downside objective if BTC relapses, and a run-up to 90,023 would trigger a theoretical 'mechanical' short, stop 93,163.
I've displayed a bullish pattern because the fall from mid-October's 112.45 peak didn't quite reach the corrective pattern's midpoint Hidden Pivot (p). The uptrend struggled for loft last week, however, and failed by 9 cents to trigger a conventional 'buy' signal at 95.79. The trigger will remain valid until such time as GDXJ slips beneath the 'C' low at 92.66. We'll adjust C downward if that occurs, but below 91.50, the short-term outlook would shift to bearish. Even so, a tightly stopped bid can be attempted there if you're a scalper, since it is the 'd' target of a small reverse pattern.
There'll be more to say about the bear market as it develops. It has taken some baby steps so far, with a 2,100-point slide in the Dow over several days, then a stunning, 1,115-point reversal to the downside after Nvidia announced strong earnings last Thursday. Talking heads and editorialists opined that quarterly numbers were not quite as sensational as investors had anticipated, but they missed the point. For just as poor earnings barely fazed stocks during the 16-year bull market, merely decent earnings are unlikely to provide more than fleeting upticks in a bear market. Get used to it, because this new dynamic will be with us until shares hit bottom years from now. With respect to Nvidia, it didn't help that Wall Street and every investor on earth was desperately counting on their earnings announcement to reverse the slide of the broad averages in the days preceding the report. When the Dow notched a record high on November 12, pundits paid scant attention to the failure of the usually feisty Nasdaq Index and the 'Cubes' (QQQ) to follow suit. Six months from now, however, this divergence will be seen as one of those bells that supposedly doesn't ring at the top. Making Disney a Has-Been Although my vantage point on Nvidia is purely technical, others saw the stock's punitive reversal as related to the questionable way they report earnings. One analyst cited the exceptionally long lag time between billings and receipts. Were the global economy to fall into recession, he notes, the manufacturer could conceivably get stiffed by strapped customers, wiping billions of dollars in profits already recorded from Nvidia's books. 'Fundamentals' undoubtedly figured into NVDA's surprising plunge, but the long-overdue deflation of AI hubris was surely a more powerful factor. I address this subject in a recent interview
