We had AAPL's number on Friday, allowing all you option junkies to get short with puts just a hair off the top. Don't count your chickens, though, even if a nimble subscriber reported a quick, $600 profit in the final minutes. The finale featured a panic-induced short-squeeze to slightly above the day's previous peak, then a collapse cleverly timed so that it wouldn't have enough time to snowball and cause real damage. Here's what the end-of-day plunge looked like on the lesser charts: a mash-up of AAPL's weaselly sponsors and little guys who never give up on the challenge of beating them at their stupid, nasty little game.
Although I track crude because it's the world's most important commodity, its gratuitous feints and swoons are too tiresome for me to follow closely enough for day- and swing-trading by the relative handful of subscribers who seem interested. Be that as it may, tradeable highs and lows are as easy to nail as a balsa two-by-four. Perfect opportunities do not materialize every day, but when they do they are easy to spot and work reliably. And, of course, when price action turns freakish, the task of setting up winning 'mechanical' trades is a piece of cake. The foregoing is not meant to discourage you, but rather the opposite. If subscribers can come up with Hidden Pivot ideas to trade this rabid mongoose, I'll be happy to vet them. For starters, focus on the pattern shown in the chart, but after it has taken out the point 'C' low, 78.45, by just a few ticks, then reverses. For now I'll highlight the 86.95 target anyway so as not to seem clueless about where this contract is headed: tortuously higher. That's how the little sonofabitch works, but I'll make it your job to find the opportunities. _______ UPDATE (Jan 30, 1:52 p.m.): March Crude provided precisely the opportunity this morning I had detailed above. Please check my chat room posts from this morning about this, since they describe in detail, with text and charts, how you might have proceeded. ______ UPDATE (Jan 30, 7:52 p.m.): Here's part of my chat room post from this morning, with a chart showing a clear path down to 77.05: For all of crude's spastic price action, it is relatively easy to read and to trade, provided you are willing to work at it. The linked chart shows the pattern that is commanding March Crude at the
I've simplified the outlook with a single target at 100.18, stripping out another at 101.03 that is likely to be just a weigh station. A fall to 'par', if not lower, seems fated. Even if the downtrend has seemed relentless and interminable, it would amount to a relatively moderate 12.7% correction off the September high at 114.78. There is of course another possibility: If DXY heads decisively lower after testing 100, that would suggest the deflationary endgame for the global economy is farther off than I'd imagined. It is inevitable, but the most promiscuous credit stimulus in history has simply delayed it.
The minor, bullish pattern shown, with a 2000.50 target, has the potential to put gold over $2000 and set up a shot at the all-time high at 2078 notched last March. Price action goes back only to a low recorded less than three weeks ago, on January 5, so I made certain the A-B segment was legitimately impulsive. You cannot see the 'external' peak that the leg surpassed, but rest assured it is there and that its conquest portends a continuation of the uptrend with no breach of the 'C' low. This implies that 'mechanical' trades to get long will enjoy exceptionally good odds for producing a profit. Stay tuned. _______ UPDATE (Jan 26, 12:31 p.m.): Feb Gold is tracking the touted pattern (see thumbnail inset) perfectly, with a nasty pullback from within two ticks (0.20) of p=1949.6. The pattern looks opportune for making money on either side of the market, including shorting at D=2000.50 with tight risk control. (Be prepared for some niggling stop-outs up there, since my merely having published the target could subject it to front-running.) More immediately, gold has triggered a 'mechanical' buy at x=1924.10, stop 1898.50. The usual caveats apply, but I would encourage you to paper-trade this one if you lack complete confidence in the 'mechanical' set-ups I've been posting in the chat room. About 90% of them have been profitable, not that that is a guarantee of future success. Here's the chart.
I jumped the gun last week with expectations of a small rally to complete the aging pattern to D=41.17. The way bulls frolicked when they first moved above p=33.49 seemed to all but ensure GDXJ would get there. It will, but we'll need to keep in step with the evidence before we assume that a strong bullish thrust past D is about to lock up more upside toward 51.51. That's an important rest station on the way to $100, or perhaps even to 179.44, where the all-time high occurred in the final days of 2010. _______ UPDATE (Jan 26, 10:28 a.m. EST): GDXJ has fallen sharply this morning after coming within a penny of my longstanding target at 41.17. Since this marks the finale of a pattern going back to early November, it 'should' take at least 2-3 weeks to set up for the next bull cycle. Any sooner would be commensurately more bullish. The next push will be to the 43.49 target shown here.
Our bellwether of bellwethers, the only stock that matters, has ample headroom to generate plenty of bullish buzz en route to the trendline shown (inset). If it were to be hit within seven or so trading days, that would occur at around 144.28, give or take perhaps a dime. My gut says there is a better chance AAPL will fail to reach the line than overshoot it, but we'll suppress such thoughts and rely on price action alone to provide trading opportunities as they occur. Here's a perspective to make the task easier -- one that looks capable of yielding some juicy 'mechanical' buys if we should get a nasty pullback or two on the way up. ______ UPDATE (Jan 23, 8:51): DaBoyz goosed AAPL into a spasm that nearly reached the trendline in mere hours, not the 5-7 days I'd estimated. Let's try to get short near the trendline if the rally resumes: Today only, if the stock is trading for 144.10 or less, bid 0.45 for four 27 Jan 140 puts. You can take up to 0.04 discretion (i.e., pay up to 0.50) as long as your bid does not exceed the mid-price of the option's bid/asked. _______ UPDATE (Jan 24, 7:36 p.m.): Bid 0.32 for the puts today, day order, same conditions but with no discretion on price. If you buy them, immediately offer half for 0.65, g-t-c. This is a longshot bet but hardly farfetched. _______ UPDATE (Jan 26, 1:11 p.m.): AAPL topped on an opening-bar short-squeeze a penny from the current target and three cents from the trendline I've been headlining for the last few weeks. The latter was an estimate, but the result was sharpened by two cents using the minor ABCD pattern shown here. I've been too busy to stay on top of the
The chart replicates the one in AAPL, which was intended to emphasize the futility of Friday's vicious short-squeeze. Something to sneeze at, as the chart implies? For now, yes. But the bull would begin to menace shorts if it takes out the 4035 apex of last week's distributive cluster of bars. Moreover, a two-day close above the cluster would put the futures on track for a test of the 4180 spike recorded on December 13. At that point, I'd rate the March contract no worse than an even bet to challenge August's 4361 peak. And so on and so forth. Although I strongly doubt a move exceeding last January's 4808 high is in the cards, I could see as high as 4477.50 -- that's a voodoo number --to scare the hell out of bears. Officially, we are still short two contracts with a profit-adjusted cost basis of 4054. Continue bidding 3950 to cover one of them, o-c-o with a stop-loss on both at 4022. _______ UPDATE (Jan 23, 8:52 a.m.): Judging from the way Friday's short squeeze turned p=3973.50 into chop suey, there is almost zero chance that D=4045.25 of this pattern will NOT be reached: https://bit.ly/3R1mlw4 Accordingly, I'll recommend covering the two short contracts now for a profit of around $6200. ______ UPDATE (Jan 23, 5:40 p.m.): Bears went all nit-witty for the second consecutive day, producing another Whoopee Cushion short-squeeze. Where will it end? See my comments in the chat room at 14:13, 17:29 and 17:31 for tradable possibilities. _______ UPDATE (Jan 26, 6:54 p.m.): The futures are closing on a 4118.00 rally target I flagged in the chat room Tuesday as 'all but certain" to be reached. Your bias should have been bullish since then, but if you missed the party the target is shortable rABC-style with the usual
We could probably flip a coin at the start of each week to determine whether to trade this rabid badger from the long side or the short. It is skittish enough to generate profits in either direction, and to do so in Hidden Pivot Method-fashion -- i.e., even when we are wrong, Although last week's update featured a bullish chart, my bias is bearish and favors the 67.88 D target. That would make the futures a 'mechanical' short at x=86.79, although we'd need to be extra cautious because of the jittery price action of the pattern's C-D leg since mid-July.
Bertie's deep-pocket sponsors lost no time putting the squeeze on shorts with market-moving news. For one, there was the rumor that the U.S., Canada and the Philippines used bitcoin to pay ransom to the hackers who briefly shut down air travel in those countries. The felons were likely trained and sponsored by China or North Korea, making bitcoin seem not merely useful, but even a little respectable as the currency of choice for highly sophisticated criminals. Also providing artificial lift for the cryptos was a perfectly timed announcement that FTX, the exchange bankrupted by Sam Bankman Fried, might be resurrected. If the cabal driving bitcoin higher can vault the 25,203 point 'C' high of the pattern shown (inset) -- an even bet right now, in my estimation -- they'll have an unimpeded shot at 30,000-plus.
Buyers closed this T-Bond proxy above the midpoint resistance for two consecutive days last week. That is usually a reliable sign that the rally will continue at least to the next level, in this case p2=111.76, so we shouldn't be too concerned with Friday's relapse. If the weakness continues down to x=103.54, especially within two days, that would trigger a 'mechanical' buy, stop 99.42, with excellent odds.
