AAPL's ascent toward a longstanding target at 176.52 has been untroubled, with no swoons ugly enough to enable a 'mechanical' buy on the way up. Nor has the rally been steep enough to make owning call options profitable. Selling them short has been the ticket, and that's probably one reason the stock's handlers have been content to get where they're going slowly but surely. This is going to be little help to us, although there may be opportunities to place jackpot bets with options that sometimes get underpriced. Stay tuned if you care. ______ UPDATE (Apr 19, 2:14 p.m.): The stock is closing on double resistance that could be shortable. See the chat room discussion for further details. ______ UPDATE (Apr 20, 11:22 p.m.); The intraday short-squeezes and gap-up opening bars have turned so ferocious lately that you just know DaBoyz are trying to Mau-Mau bears before turning out the lights. Hang onto those puts!
Bertie fulfilled my longstanding target at 30,873 last week with a 31,014 high that overshot the mark by 0.4%. The pattern is sufficiently clear and compelling that I'd be surprised if the rally were to continue without a serious correction first. So far, the selloff has been mild, amounting to a thousand points, or three percent. The Hidden Pivot levels are spent for trading purposes in any case, so any recommendations I might make in the chat room would be based on smaller patterns derived from the intraday charts. Budge me if you care, since I can discern little interest in this vehicle at this time. This is odd, since my price and trend forecasts have been dead on and also oblivious to the blather and hubris of 'experts'. _______ UPDATE (Apr 17, 6:50 p.m.): Check my 17:57 post in the chat room for a precise downside target, since I don't want to queer its dark magic by billboarding it here. _______ UPDATE (Apr 18, 9:10 a.m.): Bitcoin trampolined $1300 overnight, but not before getting within less than a tenth of a percentage point of the 29,105 target I loudly drum-rolled yesterday (17:57) in the chat room. Its masters may think they're the ones rigging the game, but as you can plainly see, they themselves are limited and ultimately controlled by Hidden Pivot levels. Here's the chart. _______ UPDATE (Apr 19, 11:54 p.m.): Too bad no one gives a rat's ass about these bitcoin touts, since the precise highs and lows Bertie's tradeable swings are nearly as predictable as tomorrow's sunrise. Here's a chart showing the failure once again of Bertie's handlers to break out of a maze that they don't even know exists.
The Dollar Index dipped below the red line (p=102.30, a 'hidden' support') for the third straight week, but this time it closed beneath it, implying more slippage over the next few weeks to at least D=98.71. Although this will lighten selling that has weighed on bullion, it will also increase the intensity of the world's nascent revolt against the dollar. The insurrection can only go so far, however, since the huge, largely unpayable debts that have piled up around the world are in dollars, effectively creating a massive short position against the greenback. This will ultimately come home to roost in the only way it can, via a deflation that liquidates all debts through bankruptcy. Economists and pundits seem to think the Fed will pull a 'Weimar' and hyperinflate the debt away, but there are a hundred good reasons why this scenario is an extreme outlier. I've written extensively on the topic over the last 30 years, but read Adam Fergusson's When Money Dies if you want to understand why boxcars filled with dollars will not be a feature of America's coming economic collapse.
We've been using the 2079.40 target shown as a minimum upside objective, but there's a yellow flag out at the moment because Friday's high at 2049.20 precisely coincided with Hidden Pivot resistance levels associated with two bullish patterns, including the one targeted on 2079.40. The pattern has already enabled a 'mechanical' buy at the green line that could have been worth as much as $6400 per contract. A second such signal would occur on a pullback to 1985.10, stop 1953.60, but I'll suggest tuning to the chat room if the opportunity gets close, since theoretical entry risk exceeds $3000 per contract. ______ UPDATE (Apr 11, 9:52 p.m. EDT): The futures look all but certain to achieve the 2029.50 target of this pattern, but the picture would brighten still move if this thrust can take out the 2031 peak to the left without pausing for breath. _______ UPDATE (Apr 12, 5:49 p.m.): The rally accomplished what we'd asked of it, then gold did its by-now-obligatory Daily Dive. A score more of them will not change the fact that this is a bull market and that all upside targets provided here for the foreseeable future will be achieved more or less exactly, if sometimes tortuously.
Buyers easily handled 'hidden' resistance last week at p2=24.57, implying the futures remain on track for a run-up to at least 26.20. [Changed to correct a rickism that gave the target initially as 26.01.] This target is slightly lower than the one previously given, since it's derived from a one-off 'A' different from the original. That was a 'Pontiac/Oldsmobile' middle-of-the-roader that I've usually advised shunning, since it often misses final highs and lows. The rally has been too steep to enable 'mechanical' entries, but a drop to the red line would signal one nonetheless, stop 21.85. _______ UPDATE (Apr 13, 6:09 p.m.): Buyers pushed the May futures to within 0.3% of the 26.20 target, effectively fulfilling it. A pullback is likely but not certain. The next important resistance is an external peak at 27.22 from March 8, 2022, and its breach would refresh the bullish energy of the long-term charts.
Although I've identified bull-market targets as high as 72.23, it's appropriate at this time to rein in our expectations, since the pattern shown, despite its steep pitch and 45.57 target, is problematical. It is the ersatz impulse leg that is most nettlesome, since it failed on the January run-up to 41.16 to surpass a key 'external' peak at 42.19 recorded last June. That diminishes the usefulness and reliability of the pattern and its D target. Additionally, last week's high stalled at p2=42.24, but also at the D target of a minor pattern. A pullback to the red line would not present an ideal 'mechanical' buying opportunity, although a hellacious slide to x=35.39 could set up something more promising._____ UPDATE (Apr 11, 9:58 p.m.): The slight poke above an external peak a 42.19 recorded on June 2 generated a short but strong impulse leg, refreshing the bullish energy of the daily chart. Now, other than 'voodoo' resistance at 43.31, it looks like clear sailing all the way to 44.42, where resistance will be felt in the form of an external peak recorded in May.
I'll continue to use the big, bearish pattern shown in the inset, with a 'D' target at 3424, to keep things in perspective. However, it behooves us to give this presumptive bear market rally wide berth, since it is feeding off the crowd's certitude that a real rally -- i.e., one capable of hitting new record highs --could never happen with the U.S. economy imploding in slow motion. To cover all the bases, my analysis last week even allowed for the possibility of a rally to new record highs above 6000, however unlikely. Since bottoming in October, the June contract has signaled two 'mechanical' shorts at the green line (4143.19) that could have yielded total profits of as much as $100,000 on four contracts. A third short sale was signaled last week when the futures touched the green line. I expect this trade to be a winner as well, although ES could climb toward C=4382.75 just to harass bears.
A usually astute correspondent thinks my 176.52 rally projection is unlikely to be realized. We want to get this one right, since, if AAPL fails to achieve 'D', it means the bear market that went into hibernation in October is about to resume. I still think the odds favor the completion of the bullish pattern, but there are two caveats. First, the impulse leg is illegitimate and therefore unreliable, since its 'B' high failed to surpass the 157.50 peak recorded just before Halloween; and second, there is daunting resistance just above in the form of a trendline and secondary pivot (p2=168.37) that closely coincide. A bullish offset is that last week's high at 166.84 exceeded both an internal and an external peak, generating a strong impulse leg of minor degree. In sum, the picture is quite mixed, and determining trend strength will therefore require close attention to price action at corrective Hidden Pivots p and D. Stay tuned!
Three weeks' worth of gratuitous feints, thrusts and dives have yet to deliver a 'mechanical' buying opportunity at the green line, hinting that this vehicle will be on its way to D=115.32 once the dithering ends. It would take just a small push to ensure this, since there are three closely spaced peaks ranging up to December 7's 109.68 that could conceivably be exceeded with a rally of just a little more than one point. This prospect complicates the logic of those who think the dollar is in trouble, since it is not mainly dollars that our many detractors around the globe hold as IOUs, but Treasury paper whose appreciation has alleviated the pain of weak U.S. currency.
The manipulation of bitcoin's price has become almost too tedious to watch. Price action is simultaneously boring and bizarre, since bitcoin doesn't attract much interest from shorts. This is paradoxical, considering that cryptos have evolved into a purely speculative vehicle with little practical value in the world of goods, services and transactions. The 30,873 target given here previously still obtains. It will be reached not because of any increase in bullish demand, but on the vapors of cyclical mood swings that give its canny handlers a riskless opportunity to withdraw supply and let 'er waft on near-zero volume.
