E-Mini S&P

The futures have opened bullishly Sunday night on the kind of manipulated weakness that is intended to probe for a bottom. At what price will sellers be exhausted so that the usual cabal of rascals and thieves can run run stocks back up bears' ol' wazoo? With the E-Minis currently down nearly eight points, it would appear that the discovery process is still in progress. However, if it stokes fears and attracts more sellers as the night progresses, look for the weakness to hit 2276.25, a Hidden Pivot support shown in the inset.  This pattern can also be used by night owls to initiate shorts 'mechanically'. The trade is recommended only to those who are familiar with the tactic, but I'd encourage Pivoteers to share their trading insights in the chat room overnight. _______ UPDATE (Jan 30, 9:38 a.m.): I put out a 2277.00 target (see new chart) just seconds before the futures plunged to it. Check chat room for trading notes.

I had proffered a 2324.00 Hidden Pivot here yesterday as a swing-for-the-fence number, but during this morning's weekly tutorial session -- attended by a record 30 webinar grads! -- we were able to identify a new and even more ambitious target at 2403.30. Judging from the way buyers ripped through the red line (see inset), a midpoint 'hidden' resistance at 2213.15, I'd estimate that the 2403.30 target has about a 70% chance of being achieved. If so, the move would equate to a 1000-point rally in the Dow Industrials, to around 21,049. This scenario seems implausible with a housing bust shaping up in the background. Existing home sales fell 2.8% in December after rising for three consecutive months. The moderate strength in Q4 2016 is attributable to buyers' eagerness to beat a further rise in mortgage rates, which have already climbed by 70 basis points from their 2016 lows.  It seems all but certain at this point that 2017 home sales will fall short of last year's mark -- perhaps far short. As much could be said about auto sales, which will be coming up against 2016's record 18.4 million vehicles. Under the circumstances, we might infer that the stock market is out of its ever-loving mind to be trading at these levels. Even so, although I trust my judgment about the shakiness of the U.S. economy, I trust my technical forecast even more. If that makes me the most bullish permabear in the guru world right now, I'm quite comfortable being out on that limb. ______ UPDATE Jan 26, 7:14 p.m. EST): Today's nervous vibrations offered little to speculate on, so I won't. There's a cluster of Hidden Pivot resistance targets 16 points above, near 1308, so we'll use that number as a minimum upside projection for now. If

The futures broke out to new record highs after a constipated, seven-week dirge, tracing out a steep trajectory that leaves the 2286.00 target shown -- click here -- in no doubt. This means a 2324.00 target first broached here a while back is our swing-for-the-fences number for any long positions still held, or to be acquired. This target and the pattern which has produced it are shown in the inset. Day- and swing-traders can short 2286.00 with a stop-loss as tight as 2287.25, but I'm recommending the trade only to those of you who have been long for the ride north. Looking at the bigger picture, the precise hit at p on January 6 (see inset) has not only confirmed the pattern, it also implies that there will be a pullback precisely from 2324.00 if it is reached. The final gasp of the bull market? We can only guess, but it looks almost certain to produce a tradable top. _______ UPDATE (Jan 25, 2:54 p.m. EST): A 2294.50 target that I posted in the chat room three hours ago has so far contained today's rally within a single tick. If and when buyers push decisively past it, we'll use the 2324.00 target of the larger pattern flagged above. Also, and FWIW, during this morning's tutorial session we identified the 2403.30 target of an even larger pattern. It is both clear and compelling and would equate to a 1000-point rally in the Dow.

I hesitate to say that some days are simply untradable, since we can always zoom down to the one-minute bar chart to find micro abc trends that will get us aboard. But the five truncated swings that defined Tuesday's opportunities, such as they were, could have driven even the most patient trader batty.  A bigger picture suggests that stocks are churning and that they are likely to head lower unless some piece of ostensibly bullish news comes to the rescue. I wouldn't count on it, though, for reasons given here yesterday. If you are driven by desperation or boredom to trade this vehicle in any event, I'd suggest using the pattern shown. Ordinarily, I would be confident that its 2286.00 target will be achieved. That would in theory make the futures a mechanical buy at the green line, stop 2248.25. Given the leaden tedium of the last five weeks, however, I'd be surprised if a rally gets past p2=2276.75.  Should we then consider getting short instead? Perhaps it's time. But if you had done so a month ago, especially using put options, you'd feel by now like you had been through a meat grinder. ________ UPDATE (Jan 18, 9:58 p.m.): Zzzzzzz. Even so, check out the recording of today's tutorial session if you remain to be convinced it's possible to make money trading this little monster even on the dullest of days. _______ UPDATE (Jan 19, 10:12 p.m.): Zzzzzzzzz. _______ UPDATE (Jan 20): Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. _________ UPDATE (Jan 23, 8:37 p.m.): A watched pot never boils, as the saying goes. Perhaps we can get this savagely boring excuse for a trading vehicle to do something by removing it from the front page. There, I've done it!

All signs pointed higher when the music stopped on Friday ahead of the three-day holiday weekend. How much higher is the question, since the futures have been vamping for more than a month, unable to move either way. If buyers on Tuesday achieve the 2277.00 target shown (see inset) -- a coin-toss bet, as far as I'm concerned -- that would merely tie the record print achieved on Friday, January 6.  It's obvious that DaBoyz are waiting for some morsel of news they could seize on to trigger a binge of short-covering. Of course, that is the only source of buying powerful enough to push the broad averages through thick levels of supply and past prior peaks. It seems unlikely that the hoped-for news trigger will come from events related to President-elect Trump's inauguration on Friday. Even less likely is that economic statistics due out this week will do the trick. Mortgage applications data will be released on Wednesday, but this is going to be a downbeat number, presumably with negative implications for stocks. That leaves Yellen's speech on Wednesday afternoon. Not much help there, since the statistical economy appears to be doing well enough that she won't be backtracking quite yet on the Fed's supposed plan to jack rates three times in 2017. Under the circumstances, I'd look for a dead week on Wall Street, with a 30% chance of a nasty swoon for no apparent reason.

The good news is that trades using our proprietary 'counterintuitive' entry technique have been working. By this I mean to say they are routinely getting buyers from trade-entry points to midpoint Hidden Pivots, where partial profits can be taken to reduce exposure. The not-so-good news is that none of these rallies are reaching their 'D' targets. This not only limits our potential gains, it also increases the number of trades where the best we can hope for is to break even. Even so, it is worth our continuing effort, since each minor-trend entry could conceivably be the one that puts us aboard a major breakout. The futures have been mired in a consolidation for a month, and sooner or later they will either take off like a rocket or sink like the Titanic. We can't know with any great confidence which will occur, however, or when, but as long as we can continue to speculate on one outcome or the other with risk held to a minimum, it behooves us to keep trying. To that end, I've labeled the ABC pattern that we should be trading now (see inset). It is distinctively bullish and promises to deliver a rally that kow-tows precisely to Hidden Pivots.  All of which suggests that we should favor 'mechanical' entries in the days ahead. The chat room is well on top of them, and you should therefore tune to the discussion for tips and guidance in real time. _______ UPDATE (Jan 12, 8:38 p.m. EST): Three straight days have featured a Whoopee Cushion bounce around mid-session, each originating from a low where bottom-fishing would have been less than appealing.  Now, however, a 'counterintuitive' entry using the 2239.50 low recorded on January 3 as a point 'A' could still offer us a chance to get long

As last week ended, buyers looked to be developing thrust for a push to the 2324.00 target shown. This would equate to a 400-point rally in the Dow Industrials that would put the blue chip average well above the supposed 20,000 barrier.  Friday's stall precisely at the 2276.00 'midpoint Hidden Pivot' implies that if and when buyers move the futures decisively above it -- meaning by at least three points -- getting to 2324.00 will become an odds-on bet. We'll look to trade this forecast in both directions:  first by getting long for the ride north; then shorting at or very near the target with a tight stop-loss. The top of Friday's moderate rally exceeded the target by 1.00 point, but that is not quite sufficient for us to infer that a run-up to 2324.00 is a done deal. However, assuming the uptrend resumes on Monday and the midpoint resistance becomes support, we'll attempt to get aboard with as little risk as possible, presumably by using a 'mechanical' bid or a 'counterintuitive' entry trigger.  If you want to see these tactics at work in real time, tune to the chat room, since there are usually at least a dozen traders in the room who have mastered them. If the trade becomes a 'go', it will be posted on The Scoreboard in timely fashion so that all subscribers can take advantage. _______ UPDATE (Jan 9, 8:37 p.m. ET): The futures are in a weak decline in after-hours trading after buyers failed to surpass 2276.00. I posted a 'mechanical' buy intraday but subsequently scratched it rather than face a possible swoon engineered by DaBoyz overnight or on the opening bar. They will need a running start to hit new highs in any event, but they'll need to do it without an assist

Traders opened the new year with headless-chicken feints in both directions, but when the dust settled bulls appeared to hold a small edge. (See inset for my short-term forecast, with a precise target.) The ho-hum outlook would improve significantly if and when the March contract pushes decisively past 2270.00 or closes about that Hidden Pivot resistance for two consecutive days.  The target was ten months in coming, so we shouldn't expect it to give way easily. The futures have been stalled beneath it since mid-December, looking for any kind of news that might spook bears into covering short positions. Short-covering panics are the main source of buying power capable of taking out heavy supply and prior peaks, but it is always unpredictable as to what news will trigger them, and when. In the past, the news invariably involved the Fed's serial postponement of promised tightening for...years. The idiotic, will-she-or-won't-she game could come into play once again, since the Fed, by way of 'managing our expectations', has said recently that it plans to tighten perhaps three times in 2017.  However, unless the economy lurches back to life, that will prove to be an idle threat, much as it has been for nearly ten years.  Does loosening have a chance? Maybe. Although it could take several months for the U.S. economy to go slack enough to allow Yellen & Co. to back off their rate-hike promise, this could happen much sooner if the stock market were to take a hellacious dive out-of-the-blue. At that point the Fed would be talking about easing, even if it would be too late to lift stocks. _______ UPDATE (Jan 4, 7:46 p.m. ET): Today's rally performed exactly as expected, topping within ticks of the 2266.00 Hidden Pivot target noted here yesterday. Can buyers now summon the

Long-time subscribers may have noticed that the E-Mini S&Ps have smartened up recently, reversing direction not at Hidden Pivot supports and resistances as they should, but all too often from somewhere in-between. It took the math majors and algos a decade to catch on to this useful feature of the ABC pattern. That they finally were able to crack the Hidden Pivot code recalls the infinite monkey theorem: Sit a thousand chimpanzees at typewriters for an infinite number of years, and one of them will eventually type Hamlet.  And so they have. This means we'll need to alter our tactics when trading this particular vehicle, which is the most over-scrutinized, over-traded and over algo'd of them all.  Doing so will require using patterns that aren't quite so obvious as the one shown (see inset) -- that are too gnarly for trading machines to discern. We should be grateful for the challenge this will present, since it'll keep us on our toes while bringing us opportunities that don't require bumping heads with trade-desk rabble and the hoi-polloi. Welcome to 2017! _______ UPDATE (Jan 3, 12:08 a.m.): Tonight's rally will start to look convincing if it can get past p=2246.25, a midpoint Hidden Pivot on the lesser  charts that is tied to a 2252.00 target.