Rick’s Picks

Much as I'd hoped to find a technical glimmer of sanity, it is nowhere in sight on DIA's intraday charts.  The island-gap reversal (see inset) back in early June was ostensibly bearish, but last week's consolidation above the gap and the midpoint Hidden Pivot of the very bullish pattern shown suggests bears are in for at least a few more weeks of brutally tough love. Friday's pop above p was slight, but the fact that DIA closed above it, and that this occurred on the high end of the week's final hourly bar, suggests that bulls are as revved up as they were in early April, before they embarked on the most powerful and financially consequential rally in history. The 297.18 target shown would leave the Dow just a hair shy of 30,000, and there's no point in fighting it. Our trading bias will remain bullish for the foreseeable future, presumably via 'mechanical' entries of a lesser degree than the chart shown. A pullback of one full HP level, however unlikely, would be a screaming 'mechanical' buy. _______ UPDATE (Aug 12, 4:38 p.m. ET): Buyers are closing on p2=285.16 (see inset) -- a good place to look for a tradeable stall, especially if you've been long on the way up. _______ UPDATE (Aug 19, 8:40 p.m.): The 285.16 rally target and the trade remain valid, although today's drop occurred with DIA having gotten no higher than 281.76.

The stock's vertical climb reversed Friday from within a hair of a technical target I'd drum-rolled a while back, allowing subscribers to initiate short positions with puts that went in-the-black almost instantly, just as we should prefer.  We all ended the day wondering, however, how long it would take for The Thing That Wouldn't Die to rev its jets for another rampage.  I'd estimate that an eventual move to at least 490.97, the Hidden Pivot target shown in the chart, is an 80% shot, given the way short-covering madmen gapped the stock through two HP levels in just two days as August began.  By last week, though, buyers were overdue for a breather, even if not looking spent. Although a retracement to the red line (p=423.78) would trip a 'mechanical' buy, I'll suggest holding out for even better prices if we should decide to jump in at all. AAPL hasn't had a correction lasting longer than three consecutive days since before the March crash, but if it were to whip around early this week and take out last week's record peak on less than four days' rest, that would be amazing but also appalling, since it would imply a degree of heedlessness and greed on the part of buyers (including the Swiss central bank, apparently) that until now had been unimaginable. AAPL has friends in high places, but that doesn't mean they aren't just as crazy as lowly portfolio managers who are paid to stay fully invested at all times in just ten stocks. _______ UPDATE (Aug 10, 8:05 p.m. ET):  It turns out that Switzerland owns $6.3 billion worth of Apple shares, and that the burghers are continuing to add to this position with flim-flammery that even Powell & Co. must envy.  Here's the full story from Wolfe Richter. _______

I'd be eager to guarantee a thrust to 3392.75, a target that has allowed us to ride confidently with the trend since mid-June, but for the fact that another, lesser Hidden Pivot resistance at 3357.00, also broached here earlier, looks too clear and compelling to write off as a patsy.  Short the lower number with a stop-loss as tight as you can abide, but be prepared to see it penetrated when the futures decide on what could prove to be a finishing stroke to 3392.75. I'd like to try shorting there as well, since it is close enough to the 3396.50 record high achieved in mid-February to cause more than a little anxiety and uncertainty among those we compete against for trading dollars. But first let's see how the rabble handle 3357.00, a modest leap from here. It could get waylaid by some unexpectedly grim headline Sunday night, but if the story concerns anything less than a collision between Earth and a massive asteroid, don't expect it to have much impact on the torch mob that has been goading this rabid beast skyward. _______ UPDATE (Aug 10, 8:19 p.m.):  DaBoyz struggled all night and then all day to get past the Hidden Pivot resistance flagged above, but ultimately they took the futures no higher than 3357.25, a single tick from where I'd anticipated a tradeable top.  A short position utilizing the target as suggested could have produced a profit of as much as $5000 on four contracts, since the futures swooned from 3555.25 to 3329.00 just after the opening. Now, look for the rabble to bully their way past the resistance to a potentially more important one at 3392.75.

The Dollar Index is closing on a long-term trendline that bears watching. It's been six years since the dollar last fell to the line, implying this technical tool is not sufficiently well-developed to give us a confident basis for predicting a major reversal. But if one does occur it would mark an approximately 12% correction from the 103.82 high recorded in January 2017.  An intervening rally in the 2018-20 period topped at the height of March madness before institutional investors settled on the rote themes that have dominated since then.  Looking just ahead, if DXY were to connect with the trendline by late August, the touch-and-go landing we are looking for would occur at around 91.78.  We'll use this as a downside target for now, since it looks more promising than any Hidden Pivot support I could offer you. It would be more than a little useful to get this prediction right, since a trend change in the dollar would likely reverse all of the trends that have become entrenched over the last five months, including the bullish ones in gold, silver, the stock market, crude oil and copper. _______ UPDATE (Aug 18, 6:15 p.m.): The dollar looks horrible, but it will look even worse if it takes out the trendline noted above. It comes in around 91.74 this week. _______ UPDATE (Aug 20, 6:33 p.m. ET): A promising rally turned flaccid on day two, although not before poking above some minor peaks from earlier in the week to create a bullish impulse leg on the hourly chart. DXY would need to hit 94.21 to suggest something serious is happening.

The December contract, so light and frolicsome recently, turned leaden on Friday with the futures about $17 below a promising looking rally target at 2107.10. We can focus on the lesser charts to tell us whether the weakness is likely to develop into something serious. As things stand, the bounce from the intraday low at 2024.80 triggered a 'mechanical' short at 2040.50, stop 2051.10. I didn't mention this in the chat room, however, because it was late in the day and because the buying looked pretty spirited. Now, a print exceeding c=2051.00 on Sunday night would stop out the theoretical short -- exactly what we should want to happen if we are going to continue to trade with a bullish bias.  The 2107.10 target will remain viable in theory unless 1927.50 is breached to the downside, but as a practical matter it would start to dim below 2000. _______ UPDATE (Aug 10, 9:04 p.m. ET): Night owls can try bottom-fishing at the 2010.60 target shown in this chart.  An rABC pattern where a= 2027.80 on the hourly chart (8/10, 3:00 p.m. ET),  is the best way to keep entry risk under tight control, but if you are unfamiliar with the tactic, use a simple, 2010.10 stop-loss. The futures looked sickly in after-hours trading, so plan on taking at least a partial profit if the trade goes your way modestly. _______ UPDATE (Aug 11, 8:48 a.m.): Gold got hit hard overnight with selling that is continuing this morning. The December contract looks bound for 1954.60, a Hidden Pivot target shown in this chart, but if it gives way, the slide could continue to as low as 1937.40 (b=1991.40).

GDX's plunge deepened on Friday, but subscribers were able to sidestep the so-far 8% dive using a longstanding rally target at 45.71 that caught the tip of last week's spike within 7 cents. We should view this reversal with more than the usual amount of caution, since the high failed by 19 cents to surpass a small but technically significant 'external' peak at 45.96 recorded back in early 2013. To be sure, it would take a print down at 40.20 to even hint of trouble on the daily chart, and we will treat this weakness in the meantime as a buying opportunity. But our bids will be less aggressive than usual, and we may even attempt to get short if a compelling opportunity should arise.  Stay tuned meanwhile to the chat room, where crowdsourcing in this vehicle has served us well. _______ UPDATE (Aug 11, 8:35 p.m. ET): You don't have to be a chartist to see that GDX has farther to fall before it can find good traction. This chart shows two logical places for the correction to bottom: at 36.84, re[resenting a 0.618 retracement of the rally begun from 31.32  in mid-June; and 34.93, equating to a 75% correction.  There  will be opportunities to trade both sides of the market on the way down, so stay tuned to the chat room for real-time, crowdsourced guidance. ______ UPDATE (Aug 17, 7:0 p.m.): The escape from last week's bog has been more decisive than I'd expected, but I'm not entirely persuaded it's for keeps. Let's see if the stock can impale the 43.17 midpoint pivot shown in this chart. If so, it'll be presumptively on its way to D=44.39. _______ UPDATE (Aug 18, 6:19 p.m.): An extremely nasty spike, as gratuitous as they come, failed by 30 cents to hit

Tech got clobbered for a rare change Friday, but you can see for yourself (inset) that this did not significantly change the bullish look of the Nasdaq 100's intraday charts. In fact, if the Cubes were to fall to p=267.34, the midpoint Hidden Pivot, that would generate a mildly enticing 'mechanical' buy, stop 262.00. I am not recommending call options for this play, however, since the green line where the bid would be placed is not a support, nor could it be expected to reverse the downtrend in the precise, precipitous manner we are used to seeing at the three Hidden Pivot levels -- p, p2 and D.  The 283.35 target will remain theoretically viable as long as C=251.32 is not violated to the downside. _______ UPDATE (Aug 10, 9:18 p.m. ET): The trade triggered around 11:00 a.m. and went into-the-black shortly thereafter, eventually achieving a recovery high at 270.90.  Since no subscribers mentioned it, I have not established a tracking position. The p&l record for these mechanical set-ups is all on the record, with  time stamps, and can speak for itself, but I am puzzled as to why they are attracting so few followers. In the interest of growing your confidence, I'll ask you to comb through past touts and chat room posts in search of 'mechanical' trades that did NOT work. I may be wrong about this, but I can recall only one in the last several weeks that produced a loss. _______ UPDATE (Aug 11, 8:40 p.m.): My post in the chat room a few days ago caught SQQQ's low near the bottom of what is turning out to be a significant rally. If you got long in this ultra-short vehicle, please let me know in the chat room so that I can determine whether to establish a tracking

[This went out via email at 6:01 p.m. Wednesday night with December Gold trading $20 lower. Owing to a problem with WordPress, however, it did not get published in the list of touts at that time. RA] I've swapped out the October chart for December, since that's where the action is.  The 2107.10 target is $16 higher than the old one, but the implications are the same. Given the steepness of the impulse leg that unfolded during the last two weeks of July, a pullback to p=2017.60 would set up an enticing 'mechanical' buy, stop 1987.70. Since Mr. Market is unlikely to gift us with such a juicy opportunity, we'll need to pay close attention to smaller entry patterns at these  levels, particularly rABCs on charts of 15-minute degree or less.  There is one such set-up at the rightmost edge of the chart shown, with an 'A' low at 2044.40 (9:00 a.m.). Entry would have come at 2046.40, stop 2941.80. ______ UPDATE (Aug 7, 8:34 a.m. ET): The futures have turned heavy, their progress toward the 2107.10 target stymied Thursday evening at 2089. I am no longer recommending a straight 'mechanical' buy on a pullback to 2017.60, since the 'D' target was nearly achieved. However, because it remains valid in theory, we still have a bull trade ahead of us, presumably with risk under tighter control than a 'mechanical' entry would allow.

I've swapped out the October chart for December, since that's where the action is.  The 2107.10 target is $16 higher than the old one, but the implications are the same. Given the steepness of the impulse leg that unfolded during the last two weeks of July, a pullback to p=2017.60 would set up an enticing 'mechanical' buy, stop 1987.70. Since Mr. Market is unlikely to gift us with such a juicy opportunity, we'll need to pay close attention to smaller entry patterns at these  levels, particularly rABCs on charts of 15-minute degree or less.  There is one such set-up at the rightmost edge of the chart shown, with an 'A' low at 2044.40 (9:00 a.m.). Entry would have come at 2046.40, stop 2941.80.