Rick’s Picks

AAPL shares got hit last week on news that sales in China had been impacted by supply-chain problems.  I said at the the time that these difficulties would be forgotten by Monday, since that has been the pattern in AAPL for years: 'Bad news? Who cares.' In this instance, however, I was looking for countervailing strength in the election outlook to hold all stocks, most particularly AAPL, aloft. Instead, investors showed little confidence last week in their ability to pick Tuesday's big winner. We'll have to wait until Wednesdays for the election to have whatever impact it's going to have. The 151.94 rally target will remain valid unless C=103.11 is penetrated to the downside. We made a small profit on some bullish butterfly spreads cashed out earlier. Let's do it again, but using a 128.24 rally target that is more realistic. Bid 0.25 for eight Nov 20 120/125/130 call butterflies, good till noon Tuesday, and only if the stock has not traded lower than 107.85, There's a good chance I will adjust this order, or even attempt to leg on the spread for less than 0.10, so stay tuned to the chat room and your email for further guidance. If you are uncertain about how to execute the spread, review the recorded lesson on this topic on your account page.  You should also have 'notifications' checked to receive updates in real time. _______ UPDATE (Nov 2, 9:36 pm. ET): The stock slipped below 107.85 in the early going, nullifying our plan. We'll let it rest on election day. ______ UPDATE (Nov 5, 9:19): The institutional chimps are back, force-feeding tons of Other People's Money up AAPL's old wazoo.  Its immediate destination is the 127.52 midpoint pivot shown in this chart, but there are no guarantees it will get there straightaway

We hold some Nov 6 130 puts effectively for free, since subscribers were able to cash out half of the original position for as much as four times what they'd paid. They are a distant longshot at this point, but you never can tell. In any event, they will have a few days to respond to the nuclear shock wave if Joe' Biden wins. I am still predicting Trump's re-election, however, and we should be thrilled to see our puts expire worthless if that's how things play out. There may also be an opportunity to buy IWM 'mechanically' on a pullback to the green line (see inset) if it should be hit on Tuesday before election returns start trickling in. Stay tuned to the chat room for further guidance. ______ UPDATE (Nov 14, 11:53 p.m.): Although I was wrong about the election outcome and the powerful rally it catalyzed in this vehicle, it cost us nothing because we had taken a partial profit on half the position, selling it for twice what we'd paid. Some subscribers actually made money being wrong, since it was possible to sell the puts for as much as four times their acquisition cost.  Now, a two-day close above p=161.78 would put a 172.17 rally target in play (60-min, A=143.35 on 9.25). _______ UPDATE (Nov 5, 9:21 p.m.): The way buyers ripped through p=161.78 today all but guarantees that IWM wlil achieve the 172.17 target.

On the chance that many Christmas stockings will be stuffed with Ruger handguns this year, we can position ourselves to benefit from a powerful rise in the stock. The rally target we'll use lies at 99.72 (see inset), and I'm recommending eight Dec 20 95/100/105 call butterflies to leverage a possible move to that number. Bid 0.25 for the time being, but plan on adjusting the price if none come at 0.25. This gambit is effectively a straddle on the election, since urban rioting, looting and violence are likely to erupt if Trump wins, but there is also the prospect of police departments across the country being defunded with Biden in the White House and a consequent unprecedented outbreak of lawlessness. We will look for longer-term 'weaponization' plays if that's the case, since Biden/Harris are hellbent on ending the America Experiment, including a criminal justice system that an army of hard-left lawyers heave been systematically dismantling for years. _______ UPDATE (Nov 2, 8:36 p.m.): The 0.25 bid was midway between a negative bid and positive offer (-040 / 0.95), although in this instance, paying the midway-price proved to have been no bargain. Regardless, the dime's difference between a good price and a lousy one won't likely change the outcome. I'll track the spread at 0.25, as is customary. It will come alive if and when glass starts shattering again in the cities. For now, offer half of the spreads to close for 0.50, good till canceled. _______ UPDATE (Nov 4, 11:58 p.m.): Ruger shares dove on Biden's apparent victory, and so did our call options. A lot could happen between now and Dec 20, when they expire, so we needn't give up on the position. However, and for what it's worth, the most bullish thing I could imagine for our

Silver intraday chart looks a little better than gold's, although a modest rally to the green line at 24.25 would still trip a 'mechanical' short (stop 25.70), as would a corresponding upthrust in gold. The short-term picture would brighten somewhat on a print at 24.77, since that would generate a health impulse leg on the hourly chart. The sooner this happens, if it does, the more bullish it would be. Failing that, the larger, bearish pattern (see inset) still indicates further slippage to p2=21.36, or possibly even D=19.92 if any lower.

The dollar has reversed sharply, averting a nerve-racking test of a long-term trendline that comes in this week at 92.13. DXY got no lower than 92.47 in the most recent down-cycle, and the last time it touched the trendline was three weeks ago at 91.70. The day's rally was not powerful enough to lead bulls out of the woods. but it  has somewhat lowered the odds of a major breakdown.  Prospects would further improve if the nascent surge generates an impulse leg on the daily chart. That would require an explosive rally exceeding 96.40 at a minimum, but it wouldn't be much of an impulse leg, since the external peak at that price  (7/10/20) is small potatoes.  On the less important hourly chart, it would take merely 94.11 to re-energize the short-term picture. That;s equal to an 'external' peak recorded on 9/30 on the way down. ______ UPDATE (Nov 1, 10:02 a.m.): Wouldn't ya know it! The little devil topped at 94.10 last week -- close, but no cigar. It looked primed to succeed nonetheless, although the pullback this will have required counts as a mild discouragement of the idea that the rally is destined for big things. ______ UPDATE (Nov 5, 9:27 p.m.): The rally has come suspiciously from two ticks above the in-your-face low at 92.47 recorded on  10/21. If it is not a strong one, look for a relapse to the 91.75 depths of September's abyss. _____ UPDATE (Nov 8, 9:45 p.m.): The rally that got off to such a promising start on 9/1 has fizzled, so I am going to remove this tout to make room for more interesting fare. I will continue to track the dollar nevertheless with occasional posts, although not on the front page.

Assuming the selloff doesn't take out the 260.11 point C low shown in the chart, the bullish pattern projects to as high as 312.29. This would not be farfetched if Trump wins, so I'll recommend putting on some butterfly spreads centered on the 310 strike.  Specifically, you should bid 0.10 for 16 Nov 20 305/310/315 call butterflies, good through Friday.  Alternatively, you can try to leg into the position, first by buying 305/310 calls spreads for  0.20, day order. QQQ might have to fall by 3-4 points to get this order filled. If the bid succeeds, offer the 310/315 call spread for 0.20. This is how we would leg into the spread for no cost, but I may adjust the order depending on how QQQ behaves on Thursday and Friday. ______ UPDATE (Oct 29, 9:53): The quoted midpoint on the spread is around 0.16, so we'll give out 0.10 bid one more day. If it doesn't fill, we may have to pay up on Monday.

I suggested early last week to tune out this vehicle -- advice that turns out to have saved us some stress. The futures oscillated nervously within a relatively tight range, paralyzed, if not by fear, then by uncertainty. Not much will be required to turn the futures into a runaway helium balloon, however, and this could happen as early as mid-week on growing perceptions that Trump will win. This notion could conceivably have gained critical mass by the time you read this on Sunday night, since Biden's campaign was taking on serious water when last week ended. Even if his now well-documented decades of graft fail to gain traction with the news media, he has enough other problems, including, most recently, voters in Pennsylvania, Texas and Oklahoma who heard what he said about killing the oil industry during Thursday's debate. The news media's disgraceful state of dereliction is not going unnoticed either, and it could gain millions of votes for Trump from Americans who are nauseated by the extremely biased coverage the campaign has received. My commentary (see above) provides yet another big reason why pollsters who have picked Sleazy Joe are growing more wrong with each passing day. Concerning the E-Mini S&Ps, if they vault the 3571.50 target shown in the chart, we can confidently infer that investors have caught a whiff of the coming Trump victory. ______ UPDATE (Oct 26, 9:34 p.m. ET): A 100-point decline might have been a worrisome sign for Trump, but bears -- and therefore Biden partisans -- had to settle for much less by the time short-covering kicked in after-hours trading. Let's see now whether sellers can get second wind. ______ UPDATE (Oct 27, 9;27 p.m.): A pullback to the green line would trigger a weak 'mechanical' buy, stop 3198.00. The trade rates

The Nasdaq 100 and the usually giddy FAANGs have been so revved up since March that their recent idleness is understandable, especially with the uncertainty of the election hanging over them. In contrast, the Indoos and the Russell 2000 look like they are developing thrust to celebrate a Trump victory. When it happens, don't be surprised to see the Naz and the techs underperform relative to their feverish trajectory since March. Over that time, 'value' took a back seat to 'growth' for long enough to raise doubts in investors' minds about the sanity of those they've entrusted with their nest eggs. That's why we should expect portfolio  managers to fake a demonstration that value consciousness is not dead. Nasdaq futures are a cinch nevertheless to hit the 12,804 target shown in the chart as soon as Trump's re-election is viewed on Wall Street as likely. Just don't expect the erstwhile lunatic stocks to rampage with the kind of rabid fervor they displayed in the past. _______ UPDATE (Oct 27, 9:54 p.m.): A fall to the green line (1193.44) would trigger a 'mechanical' buy, stop 10,656, that's more enticing than a similar one in the E-Mini S&Ps. I'd suggest using an rABC trigger on a smaller chart to initiate the trade, or to tune to the chat room for guidance if you don't know how. ______ UPDATE (Oct 28, 10:46 p.m.): I'll wait to hear from subscribers who bought at the green line before I establish a tracking position. It would take a 10,656 stop-loss. ______ UPDATE Oct 29, 10:03 p.m.):  The trade triggered and went on to produce a profit intraday of as much as $5300 per contract intraday. Some subscribers reported having done it, but they all appear to have exited before the futures dove back to the green

Gold is trading exactly where it was in mid-July, a long-term hold for investors with plenty of patience. The lack of upward progress tempts one to say that it is untradeable, but this is untrue. The chart shows four 'mechanical' buy signals  over the last two weeks that could have produced $7600 in profits per contract for anyone who simply bought when the futures came down to the green line, then sold when they hit the red line. At Friday's close the futures had embarked on yet another repeat of this money-maker. A $1900 profit seemed so certain, in fact, that any experienced trader would have avoided the trade like the plague. We'll be interested to see how December Gold extricates itself from a pattern that has become suspiciously predictable. Stay tuned. _______ UPDATE (Oct 28, 10:53): Today's dive shifted the burden of proof back to bulls. The day-ending breach of p=1873.10 in this chart implies the futures are headed down to at least p2=1839.90, or to D=1806.70 if any lower.  If a rally intervenes and reaches the green line, it would trigger a mechanical short, stop 1939.50. _____ UPDATE (Oct 29, 10:13 p.m.): A thrust exceeding 1885.10 today would turn the short-term picture mildly bullish. Even so, the bearish targets identified above will remain valid unless C=1939.40 is exceeded to the upside