Free

TLT – Lehman Bond ETF (Last:86.27)

– Posted in: Current Touts Free Rick's Picks

Last week's push above the red line, a midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance at 85.91, is the most bullish price action we've seen in more than a month.  It has given way so far to a shallow consolidation with the potential to push this symbol to the 86.51 target shown. It would also make a pullback to the green line (x=84.60) an appealing 'mechanical' buy.  You could do so with a bid there and no stop-loss, since the textbook stop at 83.29 would probably be overkill. For now, use p2=87.21 as a minimum upside projection for the near term. Decisive progress above the pivot would shorten the odds of a further run-up to the 88.51 target.

SIN25 – July Silver (Last:34.365)

– Posted in: Current Touts Free Rick's Picks

Silver's long-term chart has been promising a run-up to at least 39.272 for years, but don't hold your breath. It's been stuck in an $8 range for more than a year, but bulls show little inclination to leave the comfort zone any time soon.  Moreover, you can see that even a $7 drop to the pattern's green line wouldn't have much impact on the big picture, even if investors would likely be feeling pretty disappointed by then. The most promising opportunity I can discern for bottom-fishing or augmenting a long-term position would come on a pullback to 30.033, the midpoint Hidden Pivot support of a corrective pattern projecting to as low as 26.058. The trade would be invalidated, however, by an upthrust exceeding 34.008. _______  UPDATE (Jun 3, 1:04 a.m. EDT): I'm just a tad skeptical about today's big rally, which fell six cents shy of the 34.995  'd' target of the super-gnarly reverse pattern shown. Let's stipulate that the futures close for two consecutive days above it, or trade above 35.800 intraday, before we assume they're headed significantly higher. 

TNX.X – Ten-Year Note Rate (Last:4.41%)

– Posted in: Current Touts Free Rick's Picks

Rates on the Ten-Year Note retreated last week precisely to a key Hidden Pivot support at 4.39%. We are likely to know soon whether the downtrend will continue, since the reverse pattern here is so clear and compelling. A two-day close beneath the support would portend more slippage to as low as 4.16% over the next 4-7 days. The bet would become even juicier on an intraday print decisively below the red line -- say, 4.34% or lower. If the downtrend reverses from 4.28%, however, that could indicate an important tone change and the possible resumption of the uptrend that has dominated since early April, when rates bottomed around 3.88%.

Watch this Latest Bitcoin Crime Start a Wave!

– Posted in: Free The Morning Line

The internet has evolved into the perfect medium for spreading crime into every household and every age group, and now Bitcoin is fast becoming the perfect medium for pushing a more violent kind of crime out into the streets. There was a time when one could avoid getting mugged simply by not wearing Italian shoes, a Burberry coat or a Rolex watch in certain neighborhoods. Nowadays, though, any schlepper in a hoodie could be carrying a password in his head with access to Bitcoin enough to buy two-dozen solid-gold Rolexes. The assailant wouldn't even have to risk carrying a gun, since a small pair of pliers to yank out the schlepper's fingernails would be the only tool a thief who uses unfriendly persuasion in its most recently popularized way would need. Don't laugh, because you damned well know this is going to happen in some alley somewhere: a schmuck who wouldn't give up an alphanumeric key stored in his head will lie disfigured in a pool of blood, and the story will instantly be at the top of the news across America. It's impossible to know whether Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, is feeling remorseful over the current blizzard of headlines concerning the New York crypto investor held captive, tortured, peed on, beaten and threatened with death by two or more young men sadistically determined to pry a bitcoin account password out of him. If Satoshi has any humanity, he is asking himself 'What have I wrought?' Hadn't he simply wanted to invent a mathematically perfect money that would allow people to spend without being watched by the banks and the shadowy regulators who watch them? How ironic, then, that bitcoin has instead turned out to be an all but unusable medium for ordinary transactions while filling the heads of

TNX.X – Ten-Year Note Rate (Last:4.51%)

– Posted in: Current Touts Free Rick's Picks

Rates on the 10-Year Note gave up little ground last week, suggesting they want to move higher. If so, they'll have a chance to make an important top at 4.92%, the Hidden Pivot 'd' target of the reverse pattern shown. A precise reversal is likely there, given the obscurity of the pattern that produced resistance. We can use it as a minimum upside objective as well. That's bad news, considering the amount of refinancing ($9Tr.) the U.S. Treasury must do this year. There are no guarantees that the 4.92% target will cap the uptrend, but if it gives way, it will put a lot of weight on stocks.

CLN25 – July Crude (Last:68.17)

– Posted in: Current Touts Free Rick's Picks

Crude looks primed to screw the pooch, but the daily chart suggests two trade possibilities nonetheless.  One would call for getting short on a pop to d=65.38.  A stop-loss as tight as 15 cents can be used, although it would be preferable to set up a 'camo' trigger pattern on a chart of a lesser degree. The second trade calls for bidding 'mechanically at the green line (x=57.0). The textbook stop-loss would be just below c=54.33, so tighter risk management is called for by entering the trade with a trigger pattern of small degree. _______ UPDATE (Jun 11): Today's unusually powerful spasm suggests war may be coming, perhaps in the form of the long-anticipated strike on Iran's nuclear bomb facilities by Israel. There are many other imaginable catalysts, however, and they should all be taken seriously if this spike gets past two tough obstacles: 1) a Hidden Pivot at 68.98; and 2) the distinctive peak at 71.10 recorded on April 2.

DXY – NYBOT Dollar Index (Last:99.44)

– Posted in: Current Touts Free Rick's Picks

If DXY is going to resume the uptrend begun in April from 98.01, the 98.66 Hidden Pivot support shown would be a logical place for this to occur. The pattern is a conventional one, but because the 'B' low is not obvious, its gnarliness should work for us, delivering a tradable bottom precisely where expected. We don't typically trade this vehicle, but a reversal from the target could yield opportunity in currency pairs or futures. ______ UPDATE (May 30):  Easy come, easy go. What started out as a promising week ended with a steep, one-day reversal that left the dollar little changed from the previous week's lows. Still worse is that the apex of the rally failed to generate an impulse leg on the hourly chart by surpassing an external' peak at 110.58 recorded May 19 on the way down.

Why the ‘Wealth Effect’ Is a Giant Crock of Shit

– Posted in: Free The Morning Line

Of all the nutty ideas in investors' heads these days, none is crazier or more pernicious than the mass delusion that grotesquely inflated asset prices have made tens of millions of us rich.  As equity shares and residential real estate prices have risen higher and higher due to Fed stimulus with money conjured from nowhere, Americans have basked in the so-called wealth effect.  'Easy Al' Greenspan could be their patron saint. An egghead with a PhD in economics, he often spoke of inflated home values as 'wealth' -- i.e. money in the bank. He should have known better. Investors paying homage to Greenspan would have been at their giddiest recently when Microsoft shares opened $31 above the previous day's close. Because the software giant is a $3 trillion company, the biggest in the world by capitalization, this added about $273 billion to investment accounts holding Microsoft shares. The total amount of bullshit wealth produced by the price gap has climbed much higher since, because the short-squeeze that goosed MSFT initially has continued to this day. At last week's $460 high, the tally of vaporous 'wealth' injected into the system by MSFT's scripted explosion was $492 billion. The actual figure is probably at least five times that, or $2.4 trillion, since Microsoft's steep run-up has dragged the entire stock market along with it. The effect was most pronounced in the lunatic sector, which is sometimes referred to as the Magnificent Seven by the clowns who invent the news each day. The group includes Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Tesla, and the orgiastic performance of their shares, far from being 'magnificent', should be a source of embarrassment to civilization itself. Surfing Sea Waves You don't have to be a chartist to see that this won't end well. Stocks tend

SIN25 – July Silver (Last:32.430)

– Posted in: Current Touts Free Rick's Picks

Silver has been engulfed by tedium, almost too painful to watch. A breakdown below the sawtooth action of the last several weeks should be presumed headed to the red line, a midpoint Hidden Pivot support at 30.200. A tightly stopped buy there would be warranted if you feel like bottom-fishing, but it could take a while before the futures signal the trade. Neither bulls nor bears could be very happy at the moment, which is usually Mr Market's cue to deliver more of the same.

Time for a Little Skepticism

– Posted in: Free The Morning Line

I’ve supported Trump since his first term, but my hopes for his success peaked a month ago when a panic-induced plunge in the S&P 500 reversed almost precisely from a 4820 target I’d sent out to subscribers. I saw this as the surprisingly quick end to a bear market that had only just begun in February. If my hunch turned out to be correct, this meant America would experience no recession, and the tariff wars would blow over without causing any lasting harm to the global economy. So far, the prediction — still an outlier, for sure —  looks good, at least on paper. The chart shows how the S&Ps have rallied a Krakatoa-like 1089 points since trampolining in April from within a hair of 4820. The powerful move has somewhat muffled the clamor of TDS sufferers, even if it seems clear by now that nothing will ever bring them around. Meanwhile, dare we hope the radical changes that have set Trump’s agenda will extricate America from a debt trap with no apparent exit?  A debt deflation has long seemed inevitable because public and private debts have grown far too large to repay. DOGE Gains Up in Smoke If Trump initially offered a possible way out and seemed enthusiastic about pulling off the impossible, he may have lost too much momentum already to succeed. The DOGE cuts that fired up so many supporters have been voted down by Congress, including by some Republicans, and it took quiet help from the Fed last week to bolster the appearance of strong demand for long-term Treasury paper. Now, if the Supreme Court fails to put the kibosh on birthright citizenship and nationwide injunctions by woke judges, Trump may need a hat-trick of successes in Ukraine, the Middle East and China to rally the