Rick’s Picks

TLT's performance over the last four years has grown increasingly painful to watch, and there are no clear signs this is about to end. In fact, a little more downside remains to complete the pattern shown to D=80.84.  Alternatively, I'd need to see an uncorrected thrust above both of the circled peaks to infer that an important reversal is under way. Barring that, we should assume that more downside to at least 80.84 awaits; or if any lower, to 74.79 (! ) (Weekly chart, A= 108.87 on 4/7/23). _______ UPDATE (Aug 22): You can chase boredom by monitoring TLT's passage along the route of the reverse pattern shown. p=86.91 is a good place to bottom-fish by scalping options or the underlying, but we'll also be able to use the pattern to gauge trend strength, such as it is. ________ UPDATE (Aug 31): Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I'd said odds were remote that The Mother of All Tops is in, but last week's dive from just above a middling Hidden Pivot target has altered the picture. The move was impulsive, since it breached two 'external' lows on the daily chart. Moreover, it is bearish that the futures rallied only weakly after dipping slightly beneath the moree important low, a 6241.00 bottom recorded on July 16.  Now it's a 300-point fall to the next structural support, a whipsaw bottom at 5959 recorded on June 23. That's where the futures should be presumed headed if selling picks up steam this week, as I expect. Any rally would be a tempting short, so stay tuned to the chat room for timely guidance.

Greed got the better last week of the sleazeballs who manipulate this stock for a living. They gapped MSFT 40 points on Thursday's earning's beat, but the move was too ambitious to sustain, and MSFT came down hard. As a result, there was little opportunity to distribute stock at or near the top. It will also have left buyers with a bad taste, and they will pose a serious obstacle when DaBoyz attempt to re-levitate the software maker's shares for distribution. The selloff looks likely to hit 493.67 before MSFT can turn around, so you should plan on doing some tightly stopped bottom-fishing there (weekly, a= 468.35 on 7/5).  If that midpoint Hidden Pivot support fails, more slippage to as low as 431.89 would become likely.

Friday's lurch higher easily penetrated the 3344 midpoint resistance of the pattern shown, implying the uptrend will continue to at least 3425.40. Since the rally ended the day just beneath our sweet spot for setting up mechanical trades, I would strongly recommend tightly stopped bottom-fishing on a pullback to x=3304.30 (the green line).  If you get on board and make a few bucks on the way up, use a portion of your profits to cushion a stop-loss from 3425.40.

Use the Hidden Pivot levels shown to trade the futures in the weeks ahead. That implies you can: 1) bottom-fish at 35.946; 2) get short 'mechanically' on a rally to x=37.928, provided p=35.946 has been exceeded to the downside; 3) bottom-fish at p2=33.964; and 4) bottom-fish even more aggressively at d=31.982.  As always, a decisive penetration of p would imply more slippage to d, at least. I've obscured the point 'a' high for proprietary reasons, but you can find it yourself by working backward from the target.

Bitcoin is getting pounded this weekend, but my hunch is that it is more than just routine selling. The slippage so far amounts to more than $5k in the last 24 hours, but you should brace for a possible fall to as low as 88,293, the 'd' target of the pattern shown. A decisive plunge through the p=105,762, the midpoint Hidden Pivot support, would make that no worse than an even-odds bet. My much-darkened outlook is congruent with the very bearish forecast that will go out for the E-Mini S&Ps tomorrow afternoon. Friday's hard selling created an impulse leg on the daily chart that looks to be the start of a more serious retrenchment. _____ UPDATE (Aug 6, 7:16 p.m.): Rallies in Bitcoin and the E-Mini-S&Ps feel like distributive fakes to me. We may know soon.

The chart shown is the simplest picture of the aging bull market that I can offer. It says that two events are highly likely: 1) the 6728.50 target will be reached, and 2) an important top will form there, possibly marking the end of a bull era begun more than 16 years ago.  There is also a very small chance the party ended on Friday, since the futures finished the week within less than a point of a 6428 target that kept us confidently aboard the trend for the last 184 points. The target was an important Hidden Pivot, although not quite as important as the one at 6728.  Trends occasionally fail without reaching their ultimate 'D' targets, but only time will tell whether this is about to happen. More likely is that short covering will power past the lesser target in mere days, much as it has scores of times since 2009.

MSFT's monthly chart is companionable with the picture I've provided of the September E-Mini S&Ps (see above).  The move through p=469.29, the midpoint Hidden Pivot, occurred with such swift force that there can be little doubt the stock will achieve D=593.75, exactly 80 points above. A swoon first to x=407.04, the green line, seems unlikely, but it would trigger a very enticing 'mechanical' buy that you shouldn't pass up. A shortable stall at p2=531.54, (the secondary Hidden Pivot) is probably a better bet, so be ready with a tightly stopped offer if the stock gets there this week. The one-off 'A' low I've chosen is well formed and could give us an edge if most other traders use the 'marquee low' at 213.43 to peg a top. it would be nearly six points above ours, at 599.s1.

I've raised the bar somewhat so that we don't get suckered by yet another failed rally. I'm already on record as saying the bear market ended, possibly with October's 82.42 low.  But I'd feel more confident about this if TLT takes an uncorrected leap above the two peaks shown. If it relapses instead, I would still expect no worse than a marginal penetration of the October low, followed by a sustained rally whose steepening pitch will leave little doubt that an important trend change has occurred.