April

Gold has rewarded patient bulls with an occasional kick in the teeth and an uptrend that can suddenly  turn into a Bataan march for months on end. The good news is that it has done even worse by bears, demonstrating repeatedly that, try as they may, they cannot suppress strong, persistent demand from all corners of the world in these all-too-interesting times. At present, the April contract is making its way toward a  seemingly inevitable rendezvous with the 1988.50 midpoint Hidden Pivot shown in the chart. We'll know whether buyers are capable of hitting D=2081.80 once we've seen how they fare on first contact with the midpoint resistance.  Trade with a bullish bias for now, but only with risk tightly controlled using entry set-ups on the lesser charts (a.k.a. 'camouflage'). ______ UPDATE (Mar 28, 5:22 p.m.): The rally turned to crud well shy of 1988.50 (see above), so the yellow flag is out. My hunch is that the usual scumwads from the bullion banking world  will stop out C=1895.20 before they cease their gratuitous pounding of gold. _______ UPDATE (Mar 29, 11:30 p.m.): Although the rally came from a 'too-obvious' place, it evidently caught enough traders by surprise to keep on going. This pattern, which produced a 'mechanical' winner on the pullback to the green line, can tell us if the uptrend will continue if D=1927.70 is decisively breached. It will also work for for an rABC short, using an extremely tight a-b segment. _______ UPDATE (Mar 30, 10:09); Yo-te-ho! The futures rallied overnight, topping at exactly 1927.80 (2:25 a.m.), a single tick above the Hidden Pivot target I'd furnished for your trading guidance; then they relapsed to 1916.30 over the next three hours. A short with as tight a stop-loss as two ticks would have survived, and the trade could have

The punitive selloff from the $2078 all-time high recorded on March 8 has generated sufficient downforce to imply that a snap-back rally is unlikely. To be sure, however, let's focus minutely on the lesser charts. The one shown has a corrective target at 1915.10 that was narrowly missed at Friday's low. The target remains viable, but if the so-far-tentative bounce continues, each new peak it surpasses would have increasingly bullish implications.  A key number is 1945.60, the midpoint pivot of a big, bullish pattern projecting to as high as 1973.80. _______ UPDATE (Mar 24, 10:50 p.m.): Two days of robust buying has shifted the focus to the bullish pattern shown in this chart. Expect minimum upside to p=1988.50, but if buyers bore through it effortlessly, a possible new all-time high at 2081.50 would come into view.

Gold's feisty comeback on Friday went only far enough to trigger a moderately appealing 'mechanical' short at the green line (x=1991.70). We took a pass nonetheless, since no one wants to go home short gold with war and all-out conflagration threatening Europe. The 1921.60 downside target can still be used, but it would not be unusual for a vehicle that's in a bull market like this one to correct no lower than the secondary pivot, p2 -- in this case 1945.00. Alternatively, a move straightaway through C=2015.10 would be hell-of-bullish. ______ UPDATE (Mar 15, 1:20 p.m.) Sellers have dismembered the 'hidden' support at p2=1945.00 in order to concentrate on Part II of their plan for tonight: gang rape. _______ UPDATE (Mar 15, 9:09 a.m.): The 1921.60 target has caught the exact low to-the-tick of last night's avalanche. Sellers have been mau-mauing the Hidden Pivot this morning, but any bottom-fishing done there so far, regardless of the tactic used, would have made money. If you did a trade using my number and still hold a position, please let me know so that I can determine whether to provide tracking guidance.  Here's the chart. _______ UPDATE (Mar 15, 9:20 a.m.): The Hidden Pivot has finally given way under brutal pounding. Structural support lies near 1890, within a head-and-shoulders pattern that has traced out over the last three weeks. _______ UPDATE (Mar 15, 10:45 p.m.): The April contract is still groping for a foothold at the 1921.60 correction target, although the breach of this Hidden Pivot support is not exactly a sign of good health. We'll move to the sidelines for now.

Buyers didn't exactly obliterate the 1944.20 midpoint resistance on their first attempt to get past it last week, but the futures subsequently appeared to pick up strength when they failed to pull back to the green line (x=1911.40) to gift us with a 'mechanical' long. The implication is that the futures are bound for D=2009.75 and all but certain to achieve it.  A pullback to p=1944.20 first would trigger a 'mechanical' buy with a stop-loss at 1922.30. We can cut the risk down to size in real time, so be sure to tune to the chat room for further guidance when the futures get close to the target. _______ UPDATE (Mar 7, 9:54 a.m. EST): Gold has topped overnight (when else?) a tenth of a percent from the $2009.75 target flagged above. Using the visual technique I detailed in the chat room last week, this was close enough to have set up a low-risk, reverse-pattern short or a precise exit from a long. Anyone do the trade? In any event, here's the chart.  The so-far low of the reversal is 1964.20, a $43 drop from the high. _____ UPDATE (Mar 8, 8:52 a.m.): Ya gotta love the way gold thumbed its nose at the very-round-number resistance, $2000! The next Hidden Pivot resistance lies at 2034.80 within a pattern on the daily chart that dates back to A= 1821.10 (2/11). It will max out at 2066.60 (A=1788.50 on 2/3). _______ UPDATE (Mar 8, 10:42 p.m.): How nice to see gold acting like a FAANG stock!  I've used the highly unconventional pattern shown in this chart to project minimum upside over the near term to 2099.70.  _______ UPDATE (Mar 9, 7:23 a.m.): I've 'discovered' a new pattern that should have been more obvious to me initially and which somewhat changes my outlook for the near

April Crude's ascent seems all but certain to continue to at least 117.82, the target shown in the chart, but if this Hidden Pivot resistance fails to slow down buyers, look for a further rally to at least 122.30, the target of a larger pattern (A= 95.29 on 2/28). Chat-room interest in this vehicle has been low, but if I see an exceptional 'camouflage' or 'mechanical' buying opportunity developing intraday, I will nonetheless signal it and send out an email 'Notification'. This is a new Rick's Picks service that has produced some winners for subscribers who are not able to monitor the chat room closely. ______ UPDATE (Mar 6, 10:09 p.m. EST): The odd but entirely legitimate pattern shown maxes out immediate rally possibilities for April Crude with a 141.34 target. Judging from the way buyers crushed the midpoint resistance, the target is all but certain to be achieved eventually. A short there looks promising, but I am suggesting this only to those of you who have made money on the way up or who know how to cut entry risk to relative pocket change with a 'camo' trade set-up. The 141.34 objective is not guaranteed to be precisely accurate, since the coordinates are based on a composite chart. ______ UPDATE Mar 22 7:08 p.m.): This chart shows that today's short squeeze tripped a theoretical buy signal at x=109.73 for a possible shot at 158.34. The 125.94 midpoint pivot can serve as a minimum upside projection for now, however. The pattern is radically different from the one proffered initially, a blended contract with a 141.34 destination. I have not offered a fresh tout with the new chart because WordPress would have put it at the top of the touts list. If subscriber interest in crude revives, though, I will step up

Bears performed so poorly over the last two days that I should have flipped our trading pattern to its bullish doppelgänger yesterday to provide you with a more usable road map. Be that as it may, the April contract looks all but certain to achieve the 1964.00 target shown in the new chart. The pattern has already yielded up one textbook 'mechanical' buy at the green line that would have produced an $8,000 profit, but there will be no more such signals unless the futures surprise by diving to the green line again. For now, let's focus on how buyers interact with D=1964.00 on first contact, since an easy and decisive move through it would imply that the good guys, for a change, are likely to remain in charge for a while.

Bulls might be wondering what they did to deserve such brutal punishment. Why can't gold, which is in a bull market, rise relentlessly like the FAANG stocks have been doing for years? The answer is that gold's bull market is in its adolescence rather than in a hyper-extended blow-off. If it's any consolation, the two day plunge that ended the week failed to wipe out even half of February's strong gains.  The correction probably has at least another day or two to run, but I'd suggest using the pattern shown to get a handle on it as the new week begins. You should have noticed that the futures stopped a split-hair shy of a key resistance I'd flagged at 1977.10, demonstrating yet again their propensity to turn at price points so stupidly obvious that experienced traders are scared out of believing they will work. The best way for us to leverage this kind of group-think is to focus on 'counterintuitive' set-ups in particular, since they harness our own fears to make hay with contrarian ideas. _______ UPDATE (Feb 28, 9:08 a.m.): Here's the same pattern, but with 'C' adjusted higher.  Unless the new 'C' at 1935.20 is exceeded, the pattern should still work well for trading and analytical purposes.

The sharp reversal from $100 last week was so predictable that it's hard to take it seriously. Everyone has known that $100 is a psychologically crucial price, implying there is absolutely no way it will cap crude's world-shaking ascent. Enjoy the correction while it lasts, since the new highs that are eventually coming will push gas prices above $6 in California and other places where fuel pretends to be scarce.  The 107.63 target given here earlier still obtains, and only a drop below the 87.46 'external' low recorded on 2/18 would hint that it is not necessarily a done deal. _______ UPDATE (Mar 1, 9:10 a.m. EST): I can't account for having overlooked the very major, 101.88 rally target shown in this chart, but here it is. A place for caution, to be sure, and to squeeze off a tightly stopped short if you know how. ______ UPDATE (Mar 2, 12:17 a.m.): Shorts will have gotten their faces ripped off by today's spectacular bear squeeze, but their pain is the least of civilization's worries. When energy used to power nearly everything on the planet is repriced to take today's massive surge into account, it will turn that which lubricates global economic movement into something like glue.  Under the circumstances, the Dow showed chutzpah to have fallen a mere 500 points. Consider it an odd kind of distribution --the best the sleazeballs who manipulate markets professionally could do. But don't expect the relative softness in selling to last much longer once investors get the message. The same bozos have also underreacted to the breathtaking rally in T-Bonds, but it, too, is about to overtake them with dread. _______ UPDATE (Mar 2, 8:44 a.m.): Speaking of bozos, here's a chart I prepared last night that, if I'd remembered to include it with the update,

The April contract is closing on a 1916.40 rally target that has been coming since August, albeit not without far more sturm und drang  than gold bugs might have preferred. This is a bull market patiently waiting for a change in the very big picture to make its move. Although the nature of the change is impossible to predict, we can surmise that it will be concurrent with a fraught morning on which portfolio managers awaken with the kind of dread they haven't felt since 2008. In the meantime, we'll closely monitor price action when 'D' is hit, since an easy move past it would imply that bullion may at long last  be heating up. ______ UPDATE (Feb 23, 5:30 p.m.); The so-far shallow correction after the futures kissed the 1916.40 target earlier this week suggests they're fixing to go higher.  If so, look for the move to be effortless until around 1950, where 'discomfort zone' jeopardy will be at maximum force. It's a scalp-short for those who know how, but that wouldn't diminish the likelihood of a subsequent run-up to 1977.60, where the April contract made an important peak early this year. Here's a fresh chart.  _______UPDATE (Feb 24, 9:52 a.m.): Oh my, such a shocking surprise!  April Gold ran up to within a split hair of the 1977.60 resistance noted above, then sold off by a whopping $40.  We will be in wait-and-see mode for a while, with high-confidence trade set-ups possible only on the lesser charts.