The futures were on a tortuous path down to the 6833.25 target shown, a Hidden Pivot 'D' target where you can try bottom-fishing with a 'camo' (i.e., short- interval) trigger using a reverse pattern (rABC). The bounces along the way grew increasingly gratuitous and violent as the week drew to a close, but none went quite high enough to trigger a mechanical short. (The only trade indicated so far was a 'conventional' short at the green line.) That's why if the trade fills, you should take profits on at least half of your position on a one-level gain to p2 (6873.44).
The reverse head-and-shoulders pattern shown yields a target up near 7,250, implying that 2026 will begin with a bullish bang. I don't often refer to H&S patterns because they can be found anywhere one looks for them. However, there is no denying that they describe a telling picture of supply and demand, and that bulls have the upper hand in the picture shown. From a Hidden Pivot standpoint, a mere 7026.50 is as high as I can comfortably project. That implies the head-and-shoulders effect will be stillborn, a possibility to which we should remain open-minded but without bias. If buyers blow past that number, it would shorten the odds of a follow-through to 7250 or so.
DaBoyz are showing increasing strain as they struggle to keep this hoax aloft. The week ended with the third consecutive Friday when nothing happened. The day was over on the opening bar, an opportunistic short squeeze that leveraged the absence of 'sells' on the order book as the session began. All this aside, we should expect the futures to notch a new record high at 7026.50 in this holiday-shortened week, pending a move through the midpoint resistance at 6899.00. A pullback to the green line (x= 6835.25) can be bought 'mechanically', stop 6771.00, using a 'camo' trigger to pare risk. ______ UPDATE (Dec 24, 12:07 p.m.): It's hard to imagine who would want to be short the S&Ps, especially heading into Christmas/New Year's, but short-covering nonetheless is almost solely what is driving the rally. This morning's effortless move through a Hidden Pivot midpoint resistance at 6967.38 (A= 6596.25 on 11/21, hourly) has not only made 7026.50 a lock (see above), it has put that pattern's 7163.25 target well in play.
The futures looked so heavy on Friday that I was tempted to switch to a bearish, big-picture chart that requires a drop to 6654 to trigger a theoretical sell signal. Instead, I've focused on a smaller time frame that can give us a more nuanced picture without the drama. The midpoint Hidden Pivot at 6864.25 will not likely be useful for bottom-fishing because it coincides with Friday's low. However, we can still monitor price action closely at p2=6838.00 and D=6812.00 closely to determine whether bears might be gaining the upper hand. An easy breach of D on first contact would be evidence of this, so be alert to the possibility.
Friday's dirge provided yet more evidence that the bull is dying. With weekly options expiring, even undercapitalized pishers can do 100,000-share conversions and reversals all day long without risk. And yet, for all the phony volume, the day was over by mid-session, when the E-Minis peaked three-hundredths of a percentage point shy of a 6907.50 target that had been drum-rolled here for nearly two weeks. It was nearly seven weeks in coming, and so we might have expected a significant reversal when it was hit. Instead, the futures fell a measly 40 points, caught a tired bounce, then leveled off for the rest of the day. I hesitate to say a top is in, much less the top. But if the irresistible force that has been pushing stocks skyward since 2009 re-emerges on Monday, as is likely, be prepared for more-of-the-same up to at least 6925.00, a Rick's Picks voodoo number.
Bears dove for cover last week after a three-day short squeeze left them with the dim prospect of trying to obstruct a missile bound for new record highs. The 6907.50 target shown was a lock by Tuesday afternoon, when the futures not only punctured the midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance at 6226.25, but closed slightly above it. The question now is how much stopping power the target will show. If little or none, we can expect the rally to continue to at least 6938.00, a target calculated by sliding the 'a' low five bars to the left, to 6540.25. Above it there is only one logical target left: 7499.75. It comes from a blended monthly chart (A=3502.00, on 10/31/22), and although it will be good enough for government work, we shouldn't expect it to show precise stopping power.
If the futures relapse early in the week, looks for tradable support to develop at 6483.50, a voodoo number. However, we should be careful not to underestimate the potential power of this bear rally, especially if it blows a hole in p=6716.25, a Hidden Pivot resistance that can serve as a minimum upside objective for the near term. Above it there are three 'hidden' resistance points we can monitor to gauge trend strength. They lie at 6768.50, 6812.00 and 6907.50, respectively, and a penetration of each would imply the next is likely to be reached. The last would fall somewhat shy of the old record high at 6953.75 recorded on October 30. Since a new high could conceivably create a devastating bull trap, we should be more cautious than ever at those heights, and not without skeptici sm.
You can feel the ponderous weight of supply in the daily chart (see inset). Although the pattern lacks the symmetry of a textbook head-and-shoulders formation, there are enough similarities to infer that bulls are headed for a fall. Friday's nasty bounce, a short-squeeze assisted by an army of by-the-dip dipsticks, left bears bleeding on the ropes. But because they are still breathing, expect a buoyant opening Sunday followed by a mild upward drift. DaBoyz will extract as much mileage from this non-bullish buying to reach the green line, where a conventional 'buy' signal would trigger. It's hardly a stretch to think the squeeze could continue to p=6812.50, and so we shouldn't underestimate the ability of DaBoyz to do whatever it takes to make that happen. If they should succeed at the unthinkable and achieve new record highs, we will want to get short up there aggressively. _______ UPDATE (Nov 17, 10:08 p.m.): See my ES posts in the chat room today if you want a road map. The updates got everything just about right from bell to bell. I will be in there again on Tuesday, calling the turns and convinced that the Mother of All Bears has finally arrived. Before November is over, the 500-point drops in the Dow we've seen lately will turn out to have been just a gentle warm-up. Outside of the Bitcoin crowd, investors are not quite ready to hit the panic button, so confident are they that the buy-the-dips bozos will step in at any moment. They just might, but we'll want to fade their action with increasing aggressiveness the higher they take this brick. _______ UPDATE (Nov 18, 11:18 p.m): The futures tripped a minor 'mechanical' buy signal at 6626.75 that is predicated on a 6725.00 target. Short there only if you've made some
Bears looked pathetic on Friday when they failed to crush the opposition following hard selling overnight. Even so, I continue to believe that stocks have entered a bear market. This implies that a 7057.50 target drum-rolled here earlier will not be reached. I am not chiseling this forecast in stone, however, and I'd suggest using the details of my 15:07 post in the chat room to follow the play-by-play yourself. The critical thing to notice about Friday's bounce is that it came from below the 'd target of the pattern shown in the chart (inset). The overshoot may not look like much, but it is significant in the context of an aging bull market that until now has produced weak corrective ABCDs. To determine how significant, keep a close eye on two 'hidden' impediments above: 6786 and 6918. The provenance of both is explained in my chat room post.
Even with its unusually elongated A-B leg, the pattern shown remains the best source of tradable information we have for the runaway bull market. Price action at p suggests the 7057.50 target is likely to be reached, but until it is decisively breached, we won't concern ourselves with a still higher target at 7531.25 that was identified here earlier. As you can see, the pattern also leaves room for a few scary corrections along the way. The current one will need to come down to the red line (p=6798.88), however, before I suggest buying there 'mechanically'. We usually do these trades on pullbacks to the green line, but in this case, given the steepness of the uptrend, that opportunity may not materialize. The 'textbook' stop-loss for this trade would be at 6712.50, but in practice, we would use a 'camo' trigger to pare down theoretical entry risk by at least 90%. _______ UPDATE (Nov 3, 2:35 p.m.): Today's refreshing plunge has brought greater clarity to the immediate outlook. You can expect the futures to fall to a tradable low at 6681.75. If they rally first to 6885.7, short the crap out of them, stop 6954.00. The latter trade should be done only with a 'camo' trigger that cuts theoretical entry risk to no more than $400 per contract, and only if you've caught a profitable piece of the ride up. ______ UPDATE (Nov 5, 2025): DaBoyz used every sleazy trick in the book to spike ES (see my explanation in the chat room), but they couldn't even goose it to the red line (p=6865.63) before buyers turned tail at day's end. Use the pattern shown, ugly but serviceable, to determine whether They will eventually succeed. A decisive thrust past 'p', especially followed by a close above it, will imply that dangerous
