The Morning Line

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

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.

  What could possibly go right in 2022?  Merely posing this question is courting ridicule from some quarters, since we have grown an asset bubble with the disaster potential of 1929's. Still worse is that it sits on a geopolitical powder keg as big and dangerous as the one that detonated a decade later. Under the circumstances, the best outcome imaginable would be for the Dow Industrials to be trading at or near current levels come December, for that would imply economic Armageddon had been postponed for yet another year and that Covid bloviators had taken our minds off much bigger problems.  But at what cost? The Fed already has $8 trillion of manifestly unpayable Treasury debt on its books, and piling up more of it in order to keep stocks and real estate from crashing will only deepen the inevitable damage when the bubble pops.  That's why the very idea of a 'taper' seems so ridiculous, even if the mainstream media take this logistical absurdity seriously. Why would Powell & Co. tighten credit when merely hinting about it causes the stock market to dive unnervingly?  Worsen the effect with actual tightening and you risk throttling an asset mania that has indefinitely postponed the collapse of the U.S. economy and the onset of a deep depression. ...or Wrong Two assumptions that could go very wrong in 2022 illustrate the treacherousness of the mine field in front of us.  First is the notion that a semblance of political leadership will be restored when the Republicans regain control of Congress in November. There are good reasons to think voters will turn out in droves to neutralize the already senescent Biden and repudiate the destructive political agenda of the hard left. But what if a bear market comes first, pitching the U.S. into

Happy New Year and welcome back!  Things are beginning to return to normal at Rick's Picks following the disastrous rollout of a new web site earlier this month by a company that had been working on this project for ten months.  I've restored the old Rick's Picks pages and replaced the firm with the highly capable Brian 'Catman' Catalucci, who previously worked as my system administrator. I will keep my comments brief, since there is still some troubleshooting to do this evening to make certain this essay displays properly on the home page and reaches you via email. Mainly, I want to mention two no-brainers that should help you start 2022 with zero confusion about the global economic picture.  The first is the dollar, whose chart is displayed above. You don't have to be a technician to see that this picture is bullish. And even if the greenback is about to work its way lower in order to build a base for the next big rally, there is nothing to suggest that a collapse is even remotely possible, let alone imminent. With that in mind, you can safely tune out all the yo-yos who have been screaming for your attention with predictions of a horrendous inflation. It's not going to happen, and the real challenge for us all, including the charlatans who run the central bank, will be dealing with the catastrophic deflation that is coming with the next bear market. There's Still Time The good news is that the Papa Bear has not yet arrived, and there is still time to shift your money into Treasury paper and bullion assets. Both remain unpopular, which quite often is sufficient reason to invest in a particular asset. You can raise cash for this by dumping bull-market effluvia, including FAANG stocks, private

Mr. Market blew a great opportunity on Friday to scare the hell out of everyone, concluding the session with a mild short-squeeze rather than the devastating rout that Wall Street's years-long wilding spree so urgently needs. The continuing ascent of Apple shares as always remains key to the global illusion of prosperity and the surreal expectations of portfolio managers; and that is why, as last week’s commentary pointed out, the stock is not about to go quietly into the night.  It struggled nonetheless last week to make headway toward a 187.93 target after peaking on Wednesday at a record-high 170.20. AAPL subsequently sold off hard for all of about ten hours, then limped to the finish line to end the week in a way that could have satisfied neither bulls nor bears. The rally target, a very major one, remains viable, but we’ll need to monitor AAPL's progress toward it closely, since fears of Omicron, the latest supposed Covid variant, are threatening to strangle the global consumer economy yet again. When the week ended, Fauci and his benighted lackeys in the news media seemed eager, if not to say desperate, for someone to die, or at least be hospitalized for a few days, lest an opportunity be missed to roll out another booster shot and to stoke the public's antipathy toward the unvaccinated to new extremes. Alas, press releases from health officials in South Africa, Omicron’s apparent ground zero, only served to mitigate concerns that the variant might be the devastating killer that so many politicians and bureaucrats must be hoping for. Stocks Are Topping Meanwhile, with Western Civilization in mid-stage collapse, the stock market continues to feel like it’s in a sympathetic topping process. However, it takes a little imagination to concoct a scenario in which the practically unlimited

Mr. Market blew a great chance to scare the hell out of everyone on Friday, ending the session with a mild short-squeeze rather than the rout that stocks so desperately need. AAPL as always remains key to the global illusion of prosperity and the lofty aspirations of pension fund managers, and that is why, as last week’s commentary suggested, it is not about to go quietly into the night. The stock struggled nonetheless last week to make headway toward a 187.93 target after peaking on Wednesday at a record-high 170.20. It subsequently sold off hard for all of about ten hours, then muddled to the finish line in a way that could have satisfied neither bull nor bear. The rally target, a very major one, remains viable, but we’ll need to monitor the stock closely in case omicron fears threaten to kayo the consumer economy yet again. When the week ended, Fauci and his lackeys in the news media seemed eager, if not to say desperate, for someone to die, or at least be hospitalized for a few days, lest an opportunity be missed to roll out the booster-shot-of-the-month. Alas, press releases from South Africa, omicron’s ground zero, only served to mitigate fears that the latest Covid variant, if it is one, could be the devastating killer that so many politicians and bureaucrats are hoping for. For its part, the stock market continues to feel like it’s in a topping process. However, it takes a little imagination to concoct a scenario in which the practically unlimited quantities of ginned-up money that have powered the bull market could dry up. Consider that companies with tens of billions of real dollars of surplus cash go out and borrow funny money because, apparently, they want to save the good stuff for…exactly what? Certainly

Friday felt like a Pearl Harbor attack on Wall Street. Since when did a Thanksgiving Friday fill investors with dread and fear? The day was supposed to have passed quietly, with second-string prop desks locked on a glide path into what remained of the four-day holiday. Instead, the Dow plunged by 900 points, closing near the low of the day after a couple of failed rally attempts while the 'value'-weighted Russell index fell by nearly 4%. One might have inferred the markets were finally rebelling against all of the arrant falsehoods that have pumped them full of unnatural vigor, especially over the last year-and-a-half as the global economy has tottered. Everything was topsy-turvy as the week ended: T-bonds were screaming, the FAANGs so beloved of portfolio managers were getting pulped, and bitcoin, the speculative Porfirio Rubirosa  of this era, was immersed in molten hell. A more than $3,000 decline threatened to become the beginning of a crypto bust. Hold the Bubbly! A few of my colleagues had predicted a major top about where it occurred. Peter Eliades got closest with a magic number for the E-Mini S&Ps that caught the high within a point. My own projection missed by 20 points, or less than half a percentage point -- close enough for an honorable mention. That was until I had a closer look at AAPL's chart. The stock got hit hard, down almost 3%, but there is no escaping the fact that if it were to fall a further 5%, to 146, it would become an even better 'buy', according to the rules of my Hidden Pivot Trading System. Since AAPL more than any other stocks reflects the zeitgeist of portfolio managers, not to mention their greed, hubris and stupidity, we shouldn't be too hasty in assuming that Friday's carnage

Did you notice last week's tone change? The whole, eternally benighted world of pundits, economists, Bloomberg news producers, forecasters et al. has been disbelieving the bond rally as the Fed's ultimately unredeemable portfolio of Treasury debt has grown from merely massive to intergalactic in size. Now the talking heads are having to change their tune in order to catch up with charts that have been no worse than neutral on T-Bonds for months. So what "story" are they telling themselves to explain what they were unwilling to see back in January? Simply that we are witnessing a global "flight to safety" as Covid threatens to tank the economies of Europe and China yet again. Of course, nothing says "safety" like the whole world piling onto the shoddy, brittle edifice of U.S. debt. Trust your instincts: This trend cannot end well. In the meantime, the technical outlook calls for at least somewhat higher T-Bond prices and correspondingly lower yields. On the long bond, that would imply a descent to 1.70% from a current 1.91%. If that level is breached we could see 1.54%. At some point, the lower rates accompanying a bear market in stocks will be seen as reflecting not a flight to safety, but as a manifestation of the catastrophic deflation that has been bearing down on the financial planet, steadily gathering size and strength since the S&L crisis of the early 1990s. Dollar Short Squeeze = Deflation While economists have kept busy trying not to acknowledge that T-Bonds are moving in the wrong direction, a rising dollar has equally confounded them, as well as investors who bet on inflation. Although lower yields are ostensibly benign, albeit faintly symptomatic of the coming deflationary bust, a strong dollar is capable of wrecking the global financial system overnight. I've written here