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Bertie's constipated price action does not warrant any changes in the chart previously shown here. We see a large, potentially gorgeous head-and-shoulders top forming that could continue to evolve until April or May. It's hard to believe the bull market will last that long, but we'll give this scenario the benefit of the doubt, since what else do we have to sustain our interest in bitcoin when it is in a cooling-off period that is about to enter its second year? I will supply trading guidance in the chat room if the interest is there. For now, use the neckline just below 30,000 as a minimum downside objective for the bear cycle begun from 69,000 in November. _______ UPDATE (Feb 1, 5:55 p.m.): Bertie has become gutless -- a go-along trading vehicle that at the moment is docilely trailing the short squeeze in the broad averages.  ______ UPDATE (Feb 2, 9:03 p.m.): ...and now it is following index futures lower, in high-beta fashion. ______ UPDATE (Feb 3, 10:05 a.m.): Bertie has triggered a 'conventional' short down to 28,742, but bears shouldn't look for a quick payoff. There are no sellers, only a relative dearth of buyers, so any bleed-out will necessarily come from an accretion of paper cuts.

I've substituted TLT for T-Bond futures to give equity traders a chance to get involved. If a trade is signaled, it should be executed using TLT itself rather than puts and calls (unless they look particularly timely and opportune). There is nothing of the sort in this picture at the moment, although it may hold some small appeal for straddle sellers. A bullish resolution to this tenesmus picture is possible if TLT can rally above the pattern's 144.42 point 'C' high. That would exceed two peaks, creating an impulse leg more powerful than would be apparent at a glance.

Last week's pointless gyrations did little to dispel the notion that the bull market is over. The vicious short-squeeze in the final minutes of Friday's session only added to the impression that rallies are being stage-managed to suck in rubes. The hallmark of a bear market is un-shortable upthrusts, usually occurring at times of the day or week that make them too menacing to intercept. In this instance, even the most aggressive traders would have moved to the sidelines as index futures turned on the afterburners just ahead of the weekend. Guessing whether the buying will spill over into Sunday evening's opening would seem to be a coin-toss bet, but for the fact that few traders, including experts, can guess correctly even 50% of the time.  We typically ascribe the stock market's diabolical evasions and cunning to a mythical 'They' who are all-seeing, all-knowing and able to cause stocks to move in ways that make it nearly impossible for anyone but 'They' to profit effortlessly. In fact, there is no 'They', only a mirror that reflects every oily pore, mole and sweaty follicle of fear and greed that animate the markets. 'Supply' Story Stinks Apple, a $3 trillion King Kong in a roomful of puny 800-pound gorillas, was the ostensible cause of Friday's brash juicing of the indexes. The company reported that material shortages were not impacting the bottom line as much as investors evidently had feared. This story stinks to high heaven, but the odor was barely noticeable after the Wall Street Journal certified and ballyhooed the report by leading with it in Friday's editions. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the economic world has grown critically dependent on short-squeeze rallies in a single stock, AAPL, like the one that goosed it on Friday. Let it

Whatever is pushing up quotes for crude, it's scary to imagine.  Stocks have been acting as if they understand that the party is over. But energy prices? You'd think the global economy was about to embark on a boom so robust that it will somehow overcome the world's hopelessly knotted supply chain. In actuality, the economy of the most important buyer of oil at the margin, China, is close to imploding, starting with a real estate bubble that could be the biggest ever. Is crude perhaps discounting a collapse in supply when Putin attacks Ukraine? Whatever the answer, and even if a bear market in stocks has begun, the March oil's monthly chart implies that prices are on their way up to at least 105.08 this winter. Gas by then will be $6 a gallon, which, far from exacerbating inflation, is more likely to knock the economy on its ass. ______ UPDATE (Feb 2, 9:24 p.m.): This chart shows why it is impossible to be long in crude while keeping risk:reward in propitious balance. Notice how each new marginal high is followed by a swooning dive that is about three times what you would have made holding the position from one peak to the next.  

The head-and-shoulders pattern that AAPL has traced out since Thanksgiving is so commanding at this point that there's no point in using Hidden Pivot patterns to try to improve the forecast. The selloff will need to hit 158 or so to round out the pattern visually, with additional room all the way down to around 147 if bears mean business.  We shouldn't rule out the distant-longshot bet entirely, however. That would call for a sharp reversal from 160 or above that just keeps going. A rally with sticking power would be telegraphed by minor rallies that shred their d targets. Whatever happens, AAPL continues to be the perfect proxy for institutional mindset, ambition, folly and greed. _______ UPDATE (Jan 24, 8:23 p.m.): Today's exhilarating plunge to 154.70 made the head-and-shoulders pattern look even more compelling. It amounts to mountainous supply, so we'll focus on ways to get short, or perhaps long in order to make a few bucks ahead of the next downturn. Stay tuned to the chat room for a timelier perspective.

Silver demolished an important Hidden Pivot resistance at 24.01 with such force on Friday that we shouldn't hesitate to consider far more ambitious targets. The one shown at 40.12 is not even the most optimistic on the horizon; that lies at 53.06, the target of a pattern begun from 8.77 more than 13 years ago. We'll be better able to judge the power behind the move when we've seen how it interacts with the smaller ABCD's 30.76 midpoint pivot. Another lies at 32.35, and it is likely to be even more challenging, since it is the midpoint pivot of the much larger pattern. The lower midpoint is not in play yet, since it will require a rally to the green line (x=26.09) to lock in the recent low at 21.41 as the pattern's point 'C'; however, the big pattern has already done so.  In any event, and as you can see, both patterns have very steep impulse legs pushing the rally. That is coiled power, and if it is unfelt now, it eventually will be.  It also portends bullish 'mechanical' set-ups throughout the bull market that are extremely likely to work. Stay tuned! ______ UPDATE (Jan 24, 8:40 p.m.): My extravagant rally targets (see above) tapped a gusher of bullish sentiment in the chat room today.  That's all well and good, but please keep in mind that the March contract will need to get past November's 24.58 peak and then some before we break out the bubbly. Last week's exuberant, Hidden-Pivot-demolishing spike was a welcome and encouraging step in that direction, but no more. ______ UPDATE (Jan 26, 9:27 p.m.): The futures will fall to at least D=23.01 if the secondary support a 23.27 fails. Bottom-fish there only if you know what you're doing. _______ UPDATE (Jan 27, 8:57 p.m.): Today's downdraft

BRTI triggered a 'mechanical' buy when it fell to the green line at $44,063 earlier this month. I didn't recommend the trade however, because the 'camouflage' set-up we would have used to get long never ripened the way we prefer. Good 'mechanical' opportunities are supposed to feel scary at the time they are signaled, since the best of them usually features a plunge back to the green line that is meant to disembowel bulls who have bought C-D 'follow-through' legs too recklessly. This pattern surely qualifies as a hair-raiser. However, that in itself makes it theoretically appealing, even if not textbook perfect. The C-D leg died in the right place, but the imputed power of the A-B impulse leg was diminished by heavy choppiness near its top.  Even so, I'd rate the trade a '7.4', well above the 7.0 threshold where we tend to go for it.  I see no reason at the moment to go for much of anything, however, since the 'C' low at $28,824 will have become magnetic by now.  ______ UPDATE (Jan 24, 8:58): How cute. The turn from just north of a neon target at 32,134 occurred with no one aboard, but with a lesson to offer: Now we know that Bertie-watchers are so fixated on obvious ABCD patterns that we can't use them anymore. The attractive head-and-shoulders still needs lower lows exceeding $30,000 to look gorgeous. 

With the bull market in an apparent topping process, it will always be insightful to ponder Apple's chart. It offers a window into the minds of money managers, many of whom have staked their careers on the uptrend of just one stock. Some of these guys would be sorely challenged to analyze a game of Chutes and Ladders.  Staying long in AAPL for the last 13 years, however, and robotically adding to positions the entire way up, has required no analytical skills whatsoever, only the hubris to believe the lucrative ride will last forever. But how much more growth can a company already valued at $3 trillion deliver?  This question was bound to trouble portfolio managers eventually, and it would appear that time is now. The first thing to notice in the chart is that the stock recently failed to reach a compelling Hidden Pivot rally target at 187.93 that was flagged here more than a year ago.  It could still be achieved, although the weight of the topping pattern just beneath the target suggests the easy opportunity may be past. Under the best circumstances, chewing through the supply overhang would first require a consolidation at lower levels, then a confidence-building trek up a familiar slope that would take perhaps 4-6 months. This is by no means too much to hope for, but as my friend 'Trader Mike' Schurr always likes to remind me, hope is not a strategy. Bitcoin, AAPL's Cousin I've included a chart of bitcoin that stretches back two years. Bitcoin is AAPL's speculative cousin, the exuberantly irrational side of the bull market. It, too, appears to be in a topping pattern, which I've sketched speculatively as head-and-shoulders formation.  This is fanciful although not farfetched. AAPL arguably was forming a head-and-shoulders itself until last week's plunge destroyed

The chart above suggests that interest rates on 30-year T-bonds could be on their way up to 3.02%, a more than 40% increase over the current 2.11%.  That is not necessarily bad news for investors, since a market adjustment of that magnitude would make it unnecessary for the Fed to tighten.  It would also make it easier for the central bank to sell some of the $8Tr in U.S. debt currently sitting on its books. As the Covid asset bubble has grown to gargantuan size, it has become increasingly clear that the Fed, for all its talk about tapering, has dreaded doing so. It would surely pop the bubble, triggering a bear market in stocks and, quite possibly, a deep economic depression. A Market Adjustment That's why Powell has only talked about tightening credit. However, given the market adjustment this has helped cause, his do-nothing tactic appears to be working. If and when rates achieve 3%, it will give him room to ease. Also, a widening spread between short- and long-term rates will fatten bank profits by tens of billion of dollars. A very small handful of contrarians have been saying the Fed's next move will be to loosen, not tighten. This graph explain why they will be right. From a technical standpoint, the 3.02% target is not a done deal, however. Rates would need to blow past the 'midpoint pivot' at 2.35%, shown in the chart as a red line, to clinch a follow-through to 3.02%.  But by merely surpassing the green line as they have done this month, they have put the 3.02% target in play. From a technical standpoint, it would be a huge blunder for Powell & Co. to tighten now. You can bet they won't.