E-Mini S&P

Cue the kettle drums, because here's the no-brainer trade-of-the-month I promised that is designed to make your Rick's Picks subscription effectively free. We'll risk a theoretical $84 on it, but if it doesn't work, keep in mind that just a few of the juicy 'half-a-brainer' trades posted in the Trading Room over the last week or so -- trades you evidently didn't want to bother with -- could easily have produced gains totaling $5,000 or more.  To initiate this one, bid 26.84 for 400 shares, stop 26.63, day order. This is akin to catching a falling piano, and the stop-loss is tighter, probably, than what you are used to. Nor do I have to tell you that merely training on an exact number where we expect a significant price reversal to occur, and for hundreds of subscribers to make an easy $200-$500 on the rally, is enough to queer its magic power.  In any event, the precise entry strategy is how the Hidden Pivot Method rolls, and you can expect the 26.82 midpoint support to work precisely or not at all. (Actually, if it were to be exceeded by 70 to 80 cents, a rally back up to the green line would make GDX an attractive short.)  Have fun! _______ UPDATE (Mar 10, 12:20 p.m. EDT): Yeah, that was fun all right.  The trade was stopped out quickly for an $84 loss as gold was getting pounded by a short-squeeze rally in stocks. Don't think that because GDX looks like hell today it won't go even lower tomorrow. With today's unexpected penetration of p=26.82, GDX has signaled more downside to p2=25.24, or possible even D=23.66. This is congruent with a $1.00 drop in Silver that appears imminent. Gold futures, however, are inconclusive and can be traded from either side of

Just because the E-Mini S&Ps were down by a record-breaking 225 points today doesn't mean the selling is over. Expect the futures to fall  further 140.75 points, at least, before they can attempt to bottom. That would leave them at 2592.75, a Hidden Pivot support shown in the chart. The pattern lacks a distinctive point 'A' high, but the weak one I've chosen should be good enough for government work. No matter which top is used, it wouldn't change the fact that sellers obliterated a midpoint pivot at or near 2864.88, telegraphing yet more weakness to come.  A slight adjustment in 'A' yields an alternative target at 2603.40, so be ready for a turn from there as well. _______ UPDATE (Mar 11. 10:08 p.m.): I still expect the futures to reverse course at or very near one of the two targets flagged above. If they eventually relapse below these Hidden Pivot supports, you should infer that more slippage to 2447.75 is likely. At that point the S&P futures will have corrected 28% from the all-time high at 3995 achieved just three weeks ago. That would not necessarily mean the bear market is over. More likely would be the start of a Stage 2 that could see stocks grind bulls and bears alike to dust over the next year or so. ______ UPDATE (Mar 12, 9:10 p.m.): It is bearish that so clear and promising a Hidden Pivot support as the one at 2447.75 proffered above has given way so quickly. Since most trading algorithms have the IQ of a grapefruit seed, we should expect the machines to test the key low at 2316 recorded in late December. Look for a rally from somewhere very near there, but I cannot tell you how best to trade it until such time as

The tempo of pandemic horror stories quickened over the weekend, implying that bulls and bears who bought into Friday afternoon's short-covering binge may have set themselves up for a sacking.  We'll know by the time you read this, but my hunch is the DaBoyz will pull their bids when index futures start to trade late Sunday afternoon, letting shares fall beneath Friday's lows before stepping in. This will be tricky even for DaSleazeballs, since an onslaught of market orders from those unable to trade off-hours could hit when the regular session opens. The key support to watch is the 2808.25 target of the pattern shown. It is conservative, since we could wind up pushing the point 'A' toward the record highs achieved just before the pandemic selloff began globally.  In any event, all rallies, no matter how powerful or intimidating, should be viewed as opportunities to get short. Since many if not most traders are thinking exactly that, the rallies are bound to exceed the limits of the bearish imagination. Remember, the role of the short squeeze is not only to obliterate bears, but to keep bulls in the game -- all the way to the bottom.

On their way lower, the futures have bounced twice precisely from the 2972.63 midpoint Hidden Pivot of the pattern shown, validating the pattern itself and its 2808.25 target. That doesn't mean sellers are certain to pound it down to that level, but odds of this happening would surely increase if p is decisively exceeded to the downside.  How decisively? A two-day close beneath 2972 would suffice, or a plunge hitting 2940 (or so) intraday.  If instead the support holds and the next up-cycle exceeds the 3182.00 'external' peak recorded on February 26, that would imply a retest of the old record high is likely.

A thousand points here, a thousand points there, and pretty soon we're talking about a real rally. But is it? I'll reserve judgment until AAPL, the closest thing we have to 'the fat lady', sings. As I've pointed out here many times in the past, AAPL is the only stock one need get right in order to get the stock market right. Regardless, there is nothing I can presently imagine that will stop the futures from achieving the 3206.25 target shown in the chart. During today's session, I'd been eager to get short at p=3069, but witnessing the persistence with which short-covering bears munched through it has made the next upthrust seem all but inevitable. I may try shorting p2=3147.94 anyway, if only because it seems extremely unlikely to stop the charge. The contrarian thing. But I will do so only with risk controlled down to bupkis.

The March contract has opened 40 points lower tonight, suggesting the pros are confident they can re-energize Friday's short squeeze once the suckers who dumped market orders on the first bars are out of the way. Before this quasi-criminal operation gets under way in earnest, however, expect a retest below the 2889.25 opening bar. The 2884.00 downside target we used on Friday served us well, with many subscribers reporting big gains on the bounce, especially the initial one.  For better or worse, this week will begin without the adamantine clarity of 2884.00. On Friday, sellers bashed that Hidden Pivot support four times, exceeding it by more than a few points only once. It took four days to get there, so we shouldn't be surprised if the pivot provides support for at least another day or two -- or perhaps even longer, since we can't rule out the possibility the low will prove to be an important one. I seriously doubt THE low is in, however, since grave uncertainties surrounding the pandemic and its effects on the global economy will remain for the foreseeable future. Even so, we should be careful not to underestimate the power and longevity of short-squeeze rallies, since they are explicitly engineered to fool cocky shorts who reaped big gains on the way down into getting short again, this time to crush them good. _______ UPDATE (Mar 2, 10:16 p.m. EST): None of today's three big rally legs exceeded an external peak (see it here), so in that respect the biggest single-day point gain in history was, well...unimpressive. That doesn't mean I'm going to try to intercept the stampede with short offers every inch of the way to Kingdom Come. But when the futures plummet to new lows at some point, remember this tout. For now, I'll

Today's inverted swoon portends more downside to at least 3071.00, where an important low was recorded in early December.  Too many bulls are counting on it for support, and that's why it will be exceeded at least marginally. At that point the bearish pattern shown in this chart would become not just dominant but predictable, meaning we should expect a bounce, possibly tradeable, from p2=3053.84; and an even more likely  one from D=3011.44 exactly. The pattern is a little gnarly because its point 'A' is not obvious, and that's why I expect it to work for our usual purposes, particularly trading from either side of the market on the way down. _______ UPDATE (Feb 27, 8:22 a.m. EST): Tradestation's sometimes twitchy tool set appears to have done me out of an overnight opportunity. Although I was very careful drawing the pattern that yielded downside targets at, respectively, 3053.84 and 3011.84 (see above), I apparently wasn't careful enough. Here's a corrected chart that shows a p2 at 3055.63 that came a crucial inch closer to nailing the overnight low: https://bit.ly/396fSth The ostensibly small difference was enough to put the rABC I would have used (a=3091.00 at 5:00 am yesterday) to set up the trade just out of reach. Anyway, the corrected levels are: p2=3055.63 and D=3013.50. Prepare to be front-run at the latter -- yes, the algo chimpanzees seem to have learned one of my tricks -- when (not if) ES falls to it.______ UPDATE (Feb 27, 8:31 p.m.): Judging from reports in the trading Room today, many subscribers kicked butt as stocks plunged, visiting disaster on most investors. I've linked charts in The Morning Line with possible bottoming numbers in AAPL, T-Bond Yields and the Dow. Here's another for the E-Mini S&Ps, with a promising target at 2884.00.

Monday's so-far feeble bounce came from a place too obvious to trust. The low was very close to an important bottom at 3226 recorded on January 31.  Expect the futures to dip anew on Tuesday, stopping out bulls in order to make another run at recovery. I expect the attempt to fail, and therefore to be shortable before the relapse gets going in earnest. In the meantime, the most promising trade I can discern on the hourly chart would be a buy originating in the 'nowhere zone' between the two important lows shown. This is for rABC specialists only, but I will provide guidance if I'm in the Trading Room at a moment of opportunity. One additional note: Although I am not a fan of head-and-shoulder formations, a rally to around 3340 would be 'interesting' in an H&S kind of way. _______ UPDATE (Feb 25, 6:59 p.m. EST): In the Trading Room today, I referred to this chart numerous times to warn that the selling begun around mid-morning was likely to turn ugly as the day wore on. In fact, the futures fell an additional 73 points after I posted. A second alert 55 minutes after the initial warning noted that the plunge yet to come could shave an additional 900 points from the Dow. As of the close we were two thirds of the way there but looking for a bounce -- potentially tradeable -- from the 3098.25 target shown in the chart. Although a tightly stopped bid could work, my recommendation is that you attempt this only if you've profited on the way down. ______ UPDATE (Feb 26, 8:00 a.m.): The futures trampolined 53 points (!) after bottoming at 3091.00 at a ridiculous time of day (5:00 a.m.). Despite this inconvenience, numerous subscribers -- night owls, it would

Panicky sellers who dumped their positions on the opening tonight paid a very heavy price, since the thieves who control the game gave them a bid 45 points below Friday's close. This manipulation will have exhausted sellers, at least for the time being, making it easier for the thieves to unload their inventory at higher prices during the day. Even the predators will have to be careful, though, since the investment world has finally caught on to the fact that economic fallout from the coronavirus is going to be a very big deal -- even if the bug itself is eradicated tomorrow.  A quick die-off seems unlikely, but the story itself is picking up steam. It grew much scarier over the weekend, so much so that most traders are probably wondering why they didn't have the good sense to get short up to their eyeballs at the close on Friday.  Looking just ahead, the 3278.00 midpoint Hidden Pivot shown in the chart can be used as a minimum downside objective, but also to bottom-fish if you trade this vehicle actively. My gut feeling is that the selloff will reach the 3252.50 target in the next day or two, giving this week the worst start investors have experienced in long while.