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Copper's long-term chart suggests that the global economy could have one last hurrah once the bear market begun in January has run its course. Copper is reputed to have a PhD in economics because of its supposed ability to predict major turns accurately, In actuality, its track record is pretty impressive. The chart above shows its upturn in 2008 had a months-long head start on the bull market that followed the Great Financial Crash of 2007-08. Copper again proved prescient when the Covid selloff in the first quarter of 2020 turned into one of the steepest bull-market run-ups in history. So what is it saying now?  There are a few things to notice in the chart. Most important is the ease with which buyers pushed past the 'midpoint Hidden Pivot' resistance at $3.63/pound (shown as a red line). A decisive move past this impediment is usually a reliable sign that the trend will reach the pattern's D target, in this case $5.33, It didn't, however, and that implies the sideways move that has occurred over the last 14 months is a bearish distribution, not a consolidation. To use a Groundhog Day analogy, we will likely face six more months of winter, give or take a couple of months, before the bear market and a still unacknowledged recession have run their course. The downwave could be steep and the recession brutal, since Doc Copper's expected dive looks all but certain to crush the red line. That makes a further fall to the green line likely. It would amount to a 40% correction from the $5 high and a 33% correction from the current $4. A Screaming Buy At $2.78 (the green line), Comex Copper would become a screaming buy, technically speaking. That's because, under the simple rules of the Hidden Pivot

The ostensibly bullish pattern shown looks primed to fail, but I am featuring it anyway because it looks almost too 'textbook' not to work. Almost. Granted, winning 'mechanical' set-ups are supposed to seem scary when they trigger, but in this case we'll pass up the opportunity and watch from the sidelines. Were so promising a pattern as this to seven out, it would add to the evidence that the bear 's full fury is not yet spent. Nor is it a sign of good health that a downside target at 3850 that had been five months in coming has produced a measly 10% bounce. Here's a chart for the September contract if selling spills into the new week. The downside target is 3708.50, and judging from the way bears crushed the midpoint support on Friday, it will be achieved. ______ UPDATE (Jun 15, 12:24 p.m.): The 3708.50 target caught the exact-to-the-tick low of this week's 200-point avalanche, enabling numerous subscribers to report instant, substantial profits in the Trading Room. The bounce so far has been 55 points, but bulls should be troubled that it wasn't twice that.  We'll give it another day to see if short covering can do what bulls evidently cannot. _______ UPDATE (Jun 16, 10:22 p.m.): Bulls will have a chance to turn things around at p2=3678, but if this feat of engineering fails on a Friday as seems likely, look for more slippage to the 3502.00 target. A tradeable bottom is likely if that target is achieved. 

This will come as scant consolation to long-term investors who have suffered through three months of corrective pain and tedium, but the recent low failed to generate a bearish impulse leg on the weekly chart (see inset). It could still happen, but the implication of a second try would be that bears don't have the conviction to crack 1700. Whatever happens, bullion is just a trade at the moment and nothing more, with a time horizon of perhaps 2-5 days. _______ UPDATE (Jun 13, 10:13 p.m,): Here's a fresh chart with a 1773.70 downside target that is probably the best that bulls can hope for over the near term. A rally to x=1855.30 would trip an enticing 'mechanical' short, stop 1882.60, The trade is recommended for Pivoteers who are proficient with 'camouflage' triggers, since the initial risk on four contracts would be around $12,000 theoretical. ______ UPDATE (Jun 16, 10:32 p.m.): The rally tripped the 'mechanical' short noted above, but I am still recommending the trade only to subscribers proficient with 'camouflage' set-ups.

As if the thimble-riggers at the Fed didn't have enough to worry about, the dollar turned rabid last week, threatening to transform America's still-undeclared recession into a downturn for the history books. The greenback's rally pushed the price of U.S. goods even higher for foreigners while increasing the cost of fuel that they pay for mostly in dollars. In theory the dollar's strength should have alleviated pain at the pump for U.S. consumers. Unfortunately, however, with the cost of gas and diesel fuel thrusting to mind-numbing new highs each week, the effect has been so muted as to be barely noticeable. Wall Street has noticed the gathering storm, however, and is doing everything possible to distribute stock to the rubes before pulling the plug. Last week, for instance, Amazon was trading down around $110 a share following a 20-for-one stock split. The idea that stock splits are bullish is a pernicious lie that has gained currency because most investors tend to think that more of anything is better. Now widows and pensioners who owned just a few shares of AMZN at $2000-plus per now have twenty times as many shares. How fabulous is that? They naturally expect those shares to rise eventually to their pre-split price, which would not be unusual in a prolonged bull market. But we are quite possibly in a bear market now, and the outcome may not be so felicitous as AMZN's peanut gallery might imagine. Whatever the case, you can count on insiders to unload as much of the stock as they can now that shares have become affordable for the masses.

There's no relief in sight for gas prices that seem headed to at least $10 gallon.  The chart above suggests July crude will likely hit $128 this week or early next, a whopping 7.5% gain over last week's high. But watch out if the futures shred their way past this Hidden Pivot resistance, since that would portend a continuation of the trend to $140, a target first drum-rolled here several weeks ago.  It's a safe bet that Californians will be paying $10 or more for gasoline by then, even if far fewer of them are driving. Realize that it is not consumer demand that has been pushing up prices, or even conspiratorial constraints on supply, but rather a flood of speculative money into energy resources as a hedge against inflation. The irony is that the coming price collapse in crude will be part of a deflationary tsunami that wrecks the banksters' moronic shell game. It will occur simultaneously with a real estate collapse that has already begun. Indeed, bidding wars for homes appear to have ceased due to the steep rise in mortgage rates, record-high prices for homes, a dearth of inventory and a scarcity of qualified buyers. These factors have created perfect conditions for a real estate collapse. No Escape Inflation in energy and real estate are similar in that neither contains an escape hatch for investors. Because energy prices cannot continue to rise without eventually throttling the economy, the rally is doomed. But when prices finally plunge, as they must, that will suck the air from a $2 quadrillion derivatives market that was largely built using energy resources as collateral. The collapse in mortgage-backed securities did the same thing to the banking system in 2007-08. This time, although tens of millions of homeowners are sitting on huge paper

The chart implies that I am cautiously bullish, but that's a small exaggeration. The recent dip below 1800 seems to have exhausted sellers for the time being. However,  bulls, such as they are, appear to lack the energy or enthusiasm for turning things around.  For starters, they would need to surpass early May's 1917.60 peak to generate a bullish impulse leg on the daily chart. In the meantime, there's no point getting excited about gold's prospects until this happens. A relapse that breaches the 1792.00 low would have very bearish implications. Alternatively, if gold shocks with a powerful rally that blows up p=1937.20, we could justifiably take an earnest interest in the 2082.30 target, which is theoretically in play because the green line has been touched.

Five weeks of tedium have etched a picture of distribution on the daily chart (inset), presumably culminating with a dive at any time to the 108.74 target of the pattern shown. This suggests that my forecast for a major top in Ten Year rates at 3.24% may eventually be borne out. The so-far high at 3.17 reached on May 9 was close enough for us to have considered the target fulfilled. However, we should keep an open mind toward the possibility of a head fake corresponding to an important peak in rates. If so, it would portend deepening recession for the U.S. and the world. ______ UPDATE (Jun 13, 10:53 a.m.): I've adjusted the target upward to 3.56 using a less gnarly pattern in $TNX.X, a vehicle that tracks interest rates tied to the Ten-Year Note.

I have little to say about Bertie, other than that it continues to be as interesting as a bowl of grits. Bitcoin's deep-pocketed sponsors seem capable of maintaining a cruising altitude just below $30k indefinitely, and of popping it a few thou whenever conditions are right and they feel like mau-mauing skeptics. Although the May 12 spike down to $25k generated a quite powerful impulse leg, bears have been unable to do anything with it. For that reason, I am taking the obvious head-and-shoulders pattern as evidence that bitcoin is consolidating for a leap in a month or two to $65k or so, although not to new all-time highs. ______ UPDATE (June 11): Zzzzzzzzz. Head-and-shoulders pattern aside, I am unable to imagine a reason for such speculative fervor as that target would imply. It would reflective crazy-bullish sentiment that seems unlikely to return to securities markets for a long, long time. ______ UPDATE (June 12, 11:43 p.m.): I'd hate to be mistaken for a bitcoin bull just because I was fleetingly intrigued by an incipient head-and-shoulders formation that has turned to ca-ca with tonight's so-far $4,000 dive. I'd put out a 14,751 target in May which remains valid. To restore my bear bonafides,  here's a pattern with a 9507 target I'll start liking if sellers shred the  midpoint Hidden Pivot support at 20,930. For now, that can serve as our minimum downside objective.

One last head-fake to 3.24%?  That was my original target for a major top in interest rates. However, when the rally topped in May at 3.17%, I allowed for the possibility that it would stand as the high. Now, however, the chart pattern is looking more like a consolidation, implying a thrust to 3.24% is imminent. Odds of this would shorten if buyers can pop TNX above the 3.01% peak recorded on May 18. The novel concept of a peak in interest rates is based on the likelihood that rates are already high enough to send the U.S. and global economies into deepest recession, and on the recently begun collapse of the housing bubble.