bullion

Bullion shares and futures were chugging higher when we looked in on them this morning, but S&P futures were not blithely following their lead. Are stocks nearing a potentially important top? The suspicion grows, and so we took a good look at some Hidden Pivot rally targets in the E-Mini S&P that are close to being achieved. They line up all-too-nicely with a Dow target at 13085 that has guided us for nearly two months. As this session makes clear, it is time to reef the sails.

As last week ended, one might have believed Wall Street investors had just about everything wrong.  Stocks were up sharply on bullish payroll news that flatly contradicted something every American knows – i.e., that the Great Recession is still very much with us; T-bonds were getting whacked on the flimsy assumption that the economy is picking up strength; and gold and silver were under attack because, well, because all was right with the world.  Even the hacks and scribblers who bring us the news did their bit to feed Friday’s feel-good binge.  For one, there was nary a discouraging word on the Web’s main news pages about Greece and its slow-motion bankruptcy – only a story about how Europeans were working diligently to protect the homeless from a cold snap.  And the left-tilting L.A. Times, thinking wishfully, weighed in with the most fatuous story of the day:  an analysis piece saying that the payroll numbers could prove to be a turning point in Obama’s reelection year -- the day when he shifted from slight underdog to favorite. All of which led us to post a link at Rick’s Picks to some sobering counterpoint in the form of an essay, Peak Money Arrives. Here’s an excerpt to ponder lest you grow giddy over Friday’s silly headlines: “The world is running out of money. If money is credit, and credit relies on confidence, there is not enough confidence in the financial system to supply the world with the money it needs. Since the initial credit crisis struck in 2008, credit and money have been withdrawn from the system in such staggering amounts that international trade can no longer grow. The world’s central banks are playing a rear guard action by acting as lender of last resort to banks that no longer trust

Stocks and bullion have noticeably decoupled recently, but only mildly, and the effect so far is not strong enough to allow them to go their separate ways. Gold was up moderately early Sunday evening, but with DaBoyz manipulating index futures lower -- now by nearly 8 points in the E-Mini S&Ps -- gold and silver have given up their modest gains and are trading nearly unchanged.

Poring over the charts of bullion and the E-Mini S&Ps, we stalked a few trades but found no promising camouflage triggers to exploit. We also took a close look at Apple’s (AAPL) charts, finding things to like, although perhaps no longer to love; and at the charts of Research In Motion (RIMM), which could fall to as low as 5.67 from a current price of about 16.

Fighting the Fed is one thing. But fighting a global monetary blowout? Forget it. The financial system is so glutted with virtual dollars these days that U.S. stocks would probably hold their ground even if nuclear war were to erupt. Although Friday’s news admittedly fell shy of that threshold, we might have expected a little more deference on Wall Street toward news that Standard & Poor’s had downgraded the credit of France and Austria. Granted, this could have shocked no one, since France had all but begged its comeuppance by pretending to be Germany’s co-equal in the ongoing eurobailout dog-and-pony show. Still, we had come to expect share prices to at least defer perfunctorily to such news, since prop-desk traders typically knee-jerk in whichever direction they expect their algorithm-driven, bipolar colleagues’ knees to jerk. Thus, when the news is ostensibly bad, as was the case on Friday, it’s supposed to cause institutional money to flow out of stocks, much as it flowed out of Carnival shares after one of its liners ran disastrously aground Friday off Italy’s coast. Not this time, though. With Europe once again inching toward a supranational bankruptcy, the Dow fell a ho-hummy 49 points. This seemed especially unusual, if not to say unseemly, given that U.S. markets would be closed on Monday for the Martin Luther King holiday. Under the circumstances, we might have expected traders to take the precaution of fully discounting the scary euroheadlines that were certain to come over the weekend. As indeed they did. Even the Wall Street Journal, a reliable cheerleader for the pathetic, crackpot idea that massive new sums of ginned-up money can “save” Europe, weighed in with some uncharacteristically grim assessments. Gold, for its part, rose moderately, perhaps because the bullion bankers and their friends in very high places

Today's Gold tout goes into considerable detail in describing a limited number of scenarios that could play out in the days and weeks ahead. I've included a straightforward chart that I would urge you to study closely as you imbibe the possibilities I've spelled out.  If there's a payoff for your efforts, it is likely to come in the form of your complete readiness for whatever happens as the markets transition into 2012 and the oft-volatile month of January. Also, and for the record, I am hereby 'decoupling' from the largely unmodulated ideas of the bullion world's most revered preacher, Jim Sinclair, since there is that possibility that his stratospheric predictions will prove to be wrong. I will keep an open mind as always, but from this point forward, gold will have to prove to me each step of the way and on a strictly technical basis that it is indeed going much higher before I tell you so.

Stocks and bullion were soft Sunday night in turgid action, so I've emphasized mildly bearish possibilities in my touts for index futures and bullion.

Gold and Silver were getting pounded in the middle of the night, although index futures were down only enough to suggest that Da Dirtballs were shaking out sellers.  Their by-now-familiar trick is to make certain that the contracts they've stolen from widows and pensioners in the wee hours can be short-squeezed higher with almost no resistance before the opening bell.  The (small) gamble is that sunrise will not bring word of Europe's demise.

As we went to press Monday night, February Gold was fixing to stop out a bullish position we’d advised that produced explosive, although perhaps fleeting, gains. For subscribers who acted on the initial recommendation made here last week, there was a theoretical profit of nearly $6000 per contract at recent highs near $1767. (Click here for a free pass to our daily recommendations and forecasts.)  But because we had resolved to stick with this bullish play and swing for the fences, we watched passively as bullion quotes receded back into the by-now-familiar muck of uncertainty. To be sure, our position will survive if the futures trade no lower than 1716.20. But we’re not counting on it.  And if gold were to trigger the stop-loss and continue south, the next place we might consider bottom-fishing would be near 1702.60, a “Hidden Pivot” support determined by our proprietary forecasting method. Would such a move portend corresponding weakness in the broad averages? It seems logical, since stocks and bullion have been moving in tandem, if not in lock-step, for months.  Most recently, however, shares have acted far stronger than bullion, suggesting the two might be decoupling. We doubt it, though. More likely, in our estimation, is that the 1000-point rally in the Dow since last Monday is about to reverse and take the precious-metals complex with it, at least for a spell. The rally, after all, was based on optimism over Europe’s latest bailout nostrums and on strong retail figures thus far for the holiday shopping season, but we don’t see either affecting a big picture that remains bleak. No Crystal Ball Even so, because we employ charts and not a crystal ball, we remain open to the possibility that the Dow has more upside potential over the near term. We gave the