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Even springboarding off an engineered low in the first hour on Friday, DaBoyz were unable to achieve the modest red-line target shown in the chart. The thugs who work the night shift will get another crack at it Monday evening, or whenever it is that stocks re-open for a short while to avoid a legally forbidden four-day hiatus. I won't suggest placing any bets until we've seen how this bear rally does when pitted against the 3843.38 Hidden Pivot resistance.  As always, a decisive move past a midpoint would imply more upside to p2 (3894 in this case) at least, or possibly to D (3945). However far it gets, I seriously doubt this rally is destined for greatness. Bears will need to be on their guard nonetheless, since feel-good delusions from a celebratory Fourth weekend could persist into the new week. ______ UPDATE (Jul 5, 8;33 p.m.): Today's excruciating 'Braveheart' short-squeeze did not amount to much, even on the hourly chart. But it did breathe new life into this conventional, bullish pattern with a 3998.00 target. As always, it's all about how buyers handle p=3869.63, which has yet to be touched. _______ UPDATE (Jul 6, 7:35 p.m.): It was only a matter of time before monkeys and algos discovered how our midpoint Hidden Pivot works, but their inept use of it today suggests that we'll have to refine our own methods to stay a few years ahead of them. Traders who shorted an inch shy of p=3869.63 got stopped out quickly with a feint just above it, turning late-session action into amateur hour. Anyway, you know the drill: It'll take a decisive push past p=3869.63 to clinch a leg up to D=3998.00.  A pullback in the meantime to x=3805.44 would trigger a 'mechanical' buy, but I'm recommending the trade only to

GDXJ bounce sharply Friday off a major downside target that has been a year in coming. I was reminded by a Pivoteer in the Trading Room that I had characterized the 34.10 'D' target shown in the chart as a potential back-up-the-truck opportunity for bulls who have been patiently waiting for this cinder block to hit bottom. And perhaps it has, since the pattern is far too gnarly to have been queered by village idiots and algos who seem, finally, to have gotten the hang of reading conventional ABCD patterns. This one would not likely have been on their radar, even if it represents radical perfection in our playbook.  It helps, too, that I myself had forgotten about the target and haven't mentioned it in a long while. If you bought the low on Friday, please let me know in the chat room so that I can establish a tracking position. ______ UPDATE (Jun 28, 7:14 p.m.): Much as this little p.o.s. would love to keep falling just to make sure every bull has been squashed like a bug, it's going to have one very tough time taking out the 32.68 Hidden Pivot support shown in this chart. Speculative buying, tightly stopped, is strongly encouraged, especially if you made money on the way down. Rookies looking for action can bid 32.71 for 200 shares, stop 32.49. _______ UPDATE (Jun 30, 3:54 p.m.): This turd is really starting to stink up the place. I've given up caring or even believing there has to be a bottom. But for anyone who is somehow still interested, the next logical downside target is 29.92. Bottom-fishing there is recommended if your hobby is losing money. Here's the chart. ______ UPDATE (Jul 6, 1:59 p.m.):This bathyscaphe has bobbed up from a low today at 29.82.  How shocking!

The bullish 'reverse' pattern aired here last week served us well, taking the guesswork out of a rally that even at its nastiest was an easy read. The 3969 target can be used this week as a minimum upside objective, but also as a place to get short with the usual risk-squashing tricks if you've made some money on the way up.  Short-covering took a while to push the futures past the 3804 midpoint pivot, but once they broke above it Thursday night, the move became sufficiently decisive to turn 3969 into an odds-on bet. _______ UPDATE (June 28, 6:04 p.m.): Even though I'd drum-rolled expectations of a weak bounce, the one we got was even feebler than I might have imagined, falling fully 16 points shy of the 3966 minimum target given in the weekly commentary.  This is despite the fact that DaScuzzballs engineered a head-fake on the opening bar that exceeded the previous day's 3948 peak by a hair. The failed short-squeeze trapped bulls in a way that is not going to sit well with them on Wednesday, so don't expect a miraculous recovery. There is also a mountain of bad news weighing on the stock market at the moment, and the difficulty DaBoyz are having stampeding shorts implies another big leg down rather than a big bear rally.  _______ UPDATE (Jim 29, 9:16 a.m.): A chat-room denizen posted sentiment figures that put bearishness at its second-highest level in 35 years. I joked that perhaps this time bears have finally gotten it right, but that is most unlikely. In aactuality, it's hard to imagine a sentiment reading so extreme NOT producing a powerful short-squeeze rally. It's coming, so we will need to monitor the lesser charts closely to get the timing right. I'll suggest starting with this chart,

Odds are shortening that an important top is in. Rates on the Ten Year Note have come down steeply since peaking on June 14 at 3.48%. That left a 3.56% target I'd drum-rolled unfulfilled, but we won't give up on it, at least not yet, since a a pullback to the green line (2.92%) would trigger an enticing 'mechanical' buy in theory. My trading bias was slightly bullish when the week ended, but a rally would have to hit 33.18, exceeding June 21's 'external' peak by a tick, to become interesting. ______ UPDATE (Jul 1, 6:15 p.m.): Rates have receded from their June 14 peak of 3.48%, adding weight to possibility that an important high has been seen. The downtrend would become impulsive on the daily chart with a move below  May 25's 2.71% low.

Gold remains a study in disappointment and tedium. We've focused on a too-obvious pattern with a bearish target at 1756.90, and even shorted it on paper at 1851.20,  but with no great expectation of the futures getting there. Nor are they likely to achieve the very bullish, 2082 target of a much larger pattern any time soon. If you'd prefer to trade this vehicle nonetheless, try bottom-fishing in the range 1787-1792 with a 'camouflage' set-up using a chart of five-minute degree or less. _______ UPDATE (Jul 1, 9:27 a.m.): The futures are in a presumably meaningless bounce from 1783.40. That's below my bottom-fishing range, which was tied to a p2 'secondary pivot' at 1788.30.  The $6 overshoot is sufficient for us to presume that the next leg down, if and when it comes., will be an even-odds bet to reach the worst-case, 1756.90 target. Ray-rah-sis-boom-bah, Gold! You go, girl!

The futures tripped a promising 'mechanical' short on June 15 at 21.83, but we are just spectators, since no subscribers expressed an interest in the trade, let alone reported taking a position. The 19.64 target is valid and remains the worst-case scenario for the coming week, but it is no more likely to be reached than a comparable one in gold at 1756.90. You can try bottom-fishing at p2=20.37, which sits 5 points beneath May 13's important low. That would make it a 'discomfort zone' trade, and it can be snagged using a 'mechanical' setup on a lesser chart. ______ UPDATE (Jul 1, 9:38 p.m.): Shifting to the September contract, this morning's breach of an important hidden support implies more downside to at least D=18.96 (daily, A= 26.65 on 4/18; B=22.21 on 5/2). If that Hidden Pivot, too, is splattered, we would need to move A-B down to the next to produced a new target at 18.06, a p2 'secondary pivot'.

The Dollar Index is working on a red-line 'mechanical' buy that was profitable the day after it triggered on June 16. The trade, which is predicated on a 106.49 rally target, is still in the black, but my hunch is that a better entry opportunity awaits when this vehicle falls to the green line, 102.80. In the meantime, although we hold no position officially, we can continue to monitor DXY closely for signs of presumably moderate weakness.

The chart above is intended to take some of the guesswork out of determining how high this presumably doomed stock-market rally is likely to go. Not very, would be my guess. I say the rally is doomed for a few reasons, none of which has anything to do with a U.S. recession that began months ago, or a real estate collapse that is still in the anecdotal stage but quite real and menacing nonetheless. My assessment is based purely on certain subtle technical signs evident in the chart. First is the S&Ps' breach of a 3656  'external' low recorded back in February. The overshoot was just 17 points, or 0.46%, but that was sufficient to generate a strong impulse leg of weekly-chart degree. What it implies is that any rally off the June 17 low will turn out to have been corrective -- or to use a more descriptive word, distributive. Since we 'know' the rally is just a bear squeeze, predicting where it is likely to apex is possible. I have used a 'reverse-pattern' feature of the Hidden Pivot Method to calculate prospective rally targets at, respectively, 3966 and 4028. If the S&P mini-futures were to exceed the first by more than 5 or so points intraday, that would imply more upside to the second. Both are bound to show stopping power sufficient to be short-able, and that is what I would suggest to Rick's Picks subscribers. Sidestepping a Possible Stampede This scenario is by no means chiseled in stone, and I would be inclined to give the rally wide berth if it impales the higher number the first time it is touched. That would suggest that a bear rally worthy of the name is under way. If so, it could be expected to continue to whatever height is

TLT has rallied modestly after penetrating a longstanding and potentially important Hidden Pivot support at 108.74. It's too early to say whether a bottom is in, but we should remain open-minded to the possibility.  If so, it would leave a 3.56% upside target for interest rates on the Ten-Year Note unfulfilled, albeit with just a small, presumably tolerable discrepancy. TLT would need to hit 115.79, surpassing a peak recorded on June 7, to generate a moderately powerful impulse leg on the daily chart.