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GDXJ has corrected sharply after falling a substantial 1.68 shy of a 45.57 rally target that remains viable. In fact, a further fall to the red line, a midpoint Hidden Pivot support at p=38.92, would trip a moderately appealing 'mechanical' buy, stop 36.70. It would be less hazardous to wait for the correction to come down to x=35.59, but that would risk missing the next important upturn. In practice, we'll look to buy at the higher price, but with a 'camouflage' trigger that risks relative pocket change. Stay tuned if you care.

Our #1 bellwether spent the week screwing the pooch. Accordingly, I've adjusted our focus downward somewhat from the 176.52 rally target given here earlier. That is the D target of a much larger pattern. The less ambitious price objective is 170.57, and you should be prepared for a possible swoon to x=162.48, since that would trigger an enticing 'mechanical' buy. In the meantime, if you bought puts at the recent top that I'd signaled, you should cash out 25%-50% of your position. Swinging for the fences with put options hasn't been a very good strategy in 2023. _______ UPDATE (Apr 26, 10:58 p.m.): The criminally engineered opening bar bottomed at 162.80, a hair above the 162.48 price I'd said would trigger a 'mechanical' buy.  Anyone still holding puts?  If so, please announce yourself in the chat room.

Bond bulls could have locked up the 115.32 rally target shown in the chart with a small upthrust a couple of weeks ago, but they chickened out. The opportunity to generate a powerful impulse leg with a small move exceeding three closely-spaced peaks will have to wait for another day. Even so, the chart still says 'bullish consolidation' clearly. It is mildly bullish that three feints lower have failed to gift us with a 'mechanical' buy at the green line. When it finally happens, be prepared for the low to occur beneath x=102.99. _______ UPDATE (May 1, 4:07 p.m. EDT): TLT's crash today looks like it still has a little ways to go. Bottom-fishing at D=101.90 with a very tight stop-loss looms as a decent bet. You can substitute call options if you prefer. _______ UPDATE (May 2, 10:45 p.m.): The low occurred below 102.99, all right--  15 cents below it. That was just before TLT reversed and took off like the bat out of hell depicted in the eponymous Disney animation. Mention having caught the low in the chat room and your name will be entered in drawing for a coat made from genuine snow leopard pelts.

Bitcoin has been perfectly predictable for months, but I may remove it from the core list because my forecasts, which have been sensationally accurate, have attracted almost no discernible interest. I did get an email last week from a subscriber who said he has been enjoying Bertie touts, but apparently he's the only one.  I've continued to tout Bertie anyway in hopes of attracting some Robin Hoodies and their ilk; on second thought, however, who needs the little twerps? If you want to keep this symbol on the front page, let me know in the chat room or via email. If I hear from 25 subscribers who support it, it can stay. A voodoo 'buy' is imminent if this big-time hoax can get a 336-point bounce from a voodoo number that's less than 400 points away. But so what, right? _______ UPDATE (Apr 26, 8:54 a.m.): Bertie is screaming this morning toward 30,277, using a reverse pattern on the daily chart where a= 27,732 on April 6. Alternative a/d= 27,243/30,766. The way the rally impaled p of either pattern implies there is nearly zero chance that both of these targets will NOT be achieved.

Readers will be pleased to hear that Alissa Heinerscheid, the Anheuser-Busch marketing whiz responsible for featuring Dylan Mulvaney's unwholesome mug on cans of Bud Light, appears to have lost her job. A-B reportedly put Heinerscheid on a leave of absence, replacing her with a senior executive.  Since the megabrewer is unlikely to promote Alissa, and because she doesn't appear to be the kind of gal who would accept a permanent career plateau gracefully, it's safe to assume she will soon be seeking work elsewhere. The woman was cursed with a face made for radio, but don't be surprised if she scores a cushy off-camera sinecure at CNN or the White House. We wish her quick and total success as she sinks back into obscurity. ​​The disappointing news is that Anheuser-Busch has yet to apologize for offending the vast majority of its customers by making a flaming fruitcake its spokeswhatever for a quintessentially mainstream brand.  Curiously, even in a world that increasingly seems to reward evildoers and pander to woke wackos, BUD shares look poised for an upside breakout. This is despite a reported 10% drop in Bud Light sales.  Investors evidently believe the brand will rebound fully, but don't bet on it. A Medically Concerning Chart Concerning the chart above, it shows the E-Mini S&Ps in a day-long series of spasms on Friday that would be medically concerning if the S&Ps were human. But guess what!  The S&Ps actually are human insofar as they act to fulfill the conscious and subconscious demands of all market participants at every instant.  Moreover, the human thoughts that animate stocks are often so fraught with fear and greed as to produce price swings wild enough to be labeled aberrational or even psychotic.  Realize that the swings are a perfect visual analog for the conflicting

A chart stretching back to November provides no compelling technical basis for saying anything interesting, let alone bullish or bearish, about what might happen next. It's anyone's guess, although the June contract would have to eat through thick layers of supply to achieve new recovery highs above February's 4244 peak.  Poor earnings would help, since the mere expectation of them is usually enough to get stocks sold out before the news hits. With or without grim tidings to drive the rally, we can be assured that intraday highs and lows will continue to be predictable enough to give us an edge. Friday's peak, for instance, missed a 'D' Hidden Pivot target that was as obvious as the punchline of a mile-long stretch of Burma Shave signs. _______ UPDATE (Apr 20, 11:12 p.m.): There are some days when we should just avert our eyes and this was one of them.  A sinking VIX belies the nuttiness animating stocks these days. We should start loading up on puts today and Monday, because I strongly doubt that these histrionics are torquing the market for an ebullient move higher. That seems doubly true with The Wall Street Journal's bullish spin on...everything starting to sound increasingly desperate.  DaBoyz are getting ready to pull the plug.

AAPL's ascent toward a longstanding target at 176.52 has been untroubled, with no swoons ugly enough to enable a 'mechanical' buy on the way up.  Nor has the rally been steep enough to make owning call options profitable. Selling them short has been the ticket, and that's probably one reason the stock's handlers have been content to get where they're going slowly but surely. This is going to be little help to us, although there may be opportunities to place jackpot bets with options that sometimes get underpriced.  Stay tuned if you care. ______ UPDATE (Apr 19, 2:14 p.m.): The stock is closing on double resistance that could be shortable. See the chat room discussion for further details. ______ UPDATE (Apr 20, 11:22 p.m.); The intraday short-squeezes and gap-up opening bars have turned so ferocious lately that you just know DaBoyz are trying to Mau-Mau bears before turning out the lights. Hang onto those puts!

Bertie fulfilled my longstanding target at 30,873 last week with a 31,014 high that overshot the mark by 0.4%. The pattern is sufficiently clear and compelling that I'd be surprised if the rally were to continue without a serious correction first. So far, the selloff has been mild, amounting to a thousand points, or three percent. The Hidden Pivot levels are spent for trading purposes in any case, so any recommendations I might make in the chat room would be based on smaller patterns derived from the intraday charts.  Budge me if you care, since I can discern little interest in this vehicle at this time. This is odd, since my price and trend forecasts have been dead on and also oblivious to the blather and hubris of 'experts'. _______ UPDATE (Apr 17, 6:50 p.m.): Check my 17:57 post in the chat room for a precise downside target, since I don't want to queer its dark magic by billboarding it here. _______ UPDATE (Apr 18, 9:10 a.m.): Bitcoin trampolined $1300 overnight, but not before getting within less than a tenth of a percentage point of the 29,105 target I loudly drum-rolled yesterday (17:57) in the chat room. Its masters may think they're the ones rigging the game, but as you can plainly see, they themselves are limited and ultimately controlled by Hidden Pivot levels. Here's the chart. _______ UPDATE (Apr 19, 11:54 p.m.): Too bad no one gives a rat's ass about these bitcoin touts, since the precise highs and lows Bertie's tradeable swings are nearly as predictable as tomorrow's sunrise.  Here's a chart showing the failure once again of Bertie's handlers to break out of a maze that they don't even know exists. 

The toppy look of Anheuser-Busch's stock chart (above) implies that the company is at least somewhat likely to lose sales because of its attempt to shove the wretchedly unlovely Dylan Mulvaney down our throats.  Bud Light is undrinkable pisswater to begin with, so perhaps we should not be cheering on the frat boys who made it America's #1 rotgut, surpassing even Rolling Rock, but giving begrudging credit to the woke schemer in A-B's marketing department who managed to spin the brand out to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Choosing a flaming fruitcake to be Bud Light's spokeswhatever was the brainchild of a 39-year-old, Ivy-educated provocateur named Alissa Heinerscheid, and there's no denying that the brewhaha this prank stirred up has made her a hero to half of America. But that still leaves the other half to boycott Bud Light and sundry other products distributed by Anheuser-Busch. The list includes Stella Artois (which, despite its popularity in the U.S., Belgians evidently regard as their pisswater), Monster Energy Drink and a gallimaufry of craft beers. Dylan's Journey It is by no means assured that Anheuser will lose out, let alone that they will cashier Heinerscheid. Before she even hired Mulvaney, the vomitous saga of his regression to faux girlhood had attracted a reported five million gawkers on TikTok. He is a top influencer and arguably unmenacing as long as he's not chatting up little girls in the schoolyard. Fortunately, Heinerscheid's reach does not yet extend into our back yards. And it is just possible that overexposure will soon force her and her employer to back the hell off. To support this outcome, here's a supposed photo of her cavorting with fratty girls at a Harvard party in 2005. Blowing up condoms, admittedly, is unexceptionable behavior for party girls and debutantes who