A 4820 target I've billboarded in SPX says lower prices are coming, but that shouldn't discourage us from identifying countertrend opportunities as this vehicle works its way lower. The pattern shown is theoretically suited to that task, but it keeps signaling money-losing 'buys' at the green line. Let's use it instead to tell us when a meaningful bounce might be under way. It will do so by popping above p decisively, but you'll need to adjust p with each new 'c' low to use the pattern effectively. It will be worth the work because any textbook 'mechanical' buy signaled thereafter is very likely to make you money.
Last week's hard selling brought the futures down to the green line, signaling a moderately appealing 'mechanical' buy. The elongated b-c leg sapped some of the bullish energy from this pattern, and so we'll paper-trade this one to see how much moxie bulls have left. A gratuitous poke beneath c=5559.75 can be used to set up a 'counterintuitive' entry trigger of 46.50 points. That's too wide to be practical, so I'll suggest executing the trade with a 'camo' pattern taken from the 15-minute chart or less. I am giving the bull the benefit of the doubt because sellers missed an opportunity on Friday to generate a headline decline. _______ UPDATE (Mar 30, 10:52 p.m.); At the moment, the smallest trigger interval I can come up with for the 'CI' trade is 15.00 points, so this is still a paper-trade unless your 'camo' chops are up to snuff. ________ UPDATE (Mar 31, 3:08 p.m.): The trade produced a profit of as much as $4100 per contract after adjusting for an initial attempt that got stopped out.
Traders spent the entire week screwing the pooch, demonstrating that bulls and bears are equally clueless at the moment. It suggests that the coming bear rally will likely be a tedious affair, about as much fun to watch as the 1893 New Orleans matchup between two determined lightweight boxers, Andy Bowen and Jack Burke. It went 110 rounds before the ref mercifully called it a draw. Will the SEC step in and freeze stocks at a permanently high plateau? My hunch is that the longer this slugfest lasts, the more likely the broad averages will make marginal new highs before a full-blown, take-no-prisoners bear emerges. More immediately, however, you should use 5845.75, the Hidden Pivot target shown in the chart (inset), as a minimum upside objective when the new week begins. It will remain viable as long as traders, entranced by Wall Street's fun-house mirror, don't stop themselves out with a stupid, pointless feint beneath last week's 5650.75 low.
Friday's 101-point thrust came within less than a point of fulfilling the 5649.50 target I'd flagged in the chat room an hour before the day began. I'd said it would take much more than that to produce a bear rally worthy of the name. How much more? Probably another 300 points before bears who have bet the 'don't' line would start feeling queasy. The sassy little pisher that capped the week didn't surpass a single distinctive peak. Still, that's how all memorable bear rallies begin, greeted with skepticism the moment they bolt from the gate. Let's see if short-covering bears have the energy to lift this brick above 3/12's 5675.00 peak as the new week begins. Expect this to happen earlier in the session if at all, since that is when the sleazeball who control the game have the most control over the order book. _______ UPDATE (Mar 17, 12:53 p.m. EDT): The June contract's timid rally this morning just missed taking out a peak at 5726.75 equivalent to the one given above for the March futures. It will do so shortly, however, and will then face a more challenging and less obvious resistance at exactly 5740.25. That is the midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance of this pattern, which allows a bear rally to as high as 5920.50, a back-up-the-truck number for getting short. You can try shorting 5740.25 as well, provided you can handle a 'camo' trigger on the lesser charts. Risk no more than 3.50 points on the initial stop-loss.
The bullish stampede stalled briefly at the 4287.75 target signaled in early May, but the close above signaled more upside over the near term to at least 4331.50, a Hidden Pivot resistance shown in the chart that has been more than two months in coming. There are some additional point 'A' lows that could be used to project an even higher target, but I have not used them because the 'B' high did not exceed any prior peaks. That doesn't necessarily mean the futures can't surpass 4331.50, only that a target above cannot be considered precisely reliable. Please note that a swoon touching either the red or green line, however unlikely, would generate an appealing 'mechanical' buy. ______ UPDATE (Jun 5, 6:43 p.m.): The S&Ps sympathetically weakened when AAPL plunged today, but this seemed scant reason for concern. It happened because too many amateur traders were expecting the long-awaited unveiling of Apple's ridiculously overpriced VR goggles to send the stock soaring. It did, albeit briefly and with help from the usual short-covering panic overnight. However, the subsequent dive was merely classic 'buy-the-rumor-sell-the-news' price action, probably signifying nothing. We'll monitor AAPL closely nonetheless, since the selloff began from a high just nine cents from the 184.86 rally target I'd drum-rolled in the AAPL tout just above. _______ UPDATE (Jun 8, 4:54 p.m.): The trendline shown in this weekly chart has been breached only slightly, but it should not have been breached at all if the rally were about to reverse. The line is authoritative because the two peaks it connects came ahead of precipitous selloffs. If the futures close above the line on Friday or trade decisively above it, that would be yet another warning to bears against fighting the rally aggressively.
Last Wednesday's textbook 'mechanical' buy at x=4120.00 left little doubt where the June contract is headed next. The 'D' target at 4288.75 seems all but certain to be hit early in this four-day week. If it pushes past the Hidden Pivot resistance by more than a couple of points on the first try, you may confidently assume that a new target at 4332.75 is in play. It is derived from the somewhat lower 'A' at 3937.00 recorded on March 24. _______ UPDATE (Jun 2, 9:25 a.m. EDT): The Hidden Pivot target at 4287.75 (a slight correction) still appears certain to be reached. The small delay relative to my forecast occurred because -- manifestly -- too many traders were bullish when the week began. You will have noticed that whatever factors that gave us good reason to be quite bearish are not exactly weighing on the stock market's walnut-size brain at the moment. When DaBoyz fist-pump ES obliviously past 4287.75, you can infer that 4331.50 is the next stop, a slight adjustment from the number given above.
The futures ended the week a hair shy of the 4244.00 'internal peak' recorded on February 3. Hold the applause if buyers should surpass it this week, however, since the 4382.75 peak from August 19 is the one that matters. A rally exceeding it would generate a bullish impulse leg of weekly-chart degree, putting in jeopardy the hopes and dreams of those who think an old-fashioned economic depression would be just the thing to asphyxiate the trivial concerns of wokeness, tame rampant paganism in America, rebuke a hopelessly corrupt political system and provide a reality check for an economic system that runs on debt and helium. Stay tuned to the Trading Room for white-hot trading tips while we're waiting. _____ UPDATE (May 24, 8:54 p.m.): The 'white-hot tip' mentioned above popped up serendipitously during this morning's tutorial session for advanced Pivoteers. It helped us fine-tune a textbook 'mechanical' buy after the futures finished mau-mauing bulls with what we will assume for now was a gratuitous dive. The rally target is the 4287.75 D pivot of this pattern, but we'll sit back for now and let bulls prove their case. ______ UPDATE (May 25, 9:59 a.m.): The selloff that has caused last night's short-squeeze to detumesce is not going anywhere, since the peak of the overnight rally exceeded yesterday's high by two ticks. That makes it impulsive, so expect a rebound. Also, I have corrected the chart accompanying the previous update.
Let's not waste too much time pondering what this sad sack of tailings is going to do next, since it hasn't done much of anything for more than a month. That's if you don't count the meaningless spasms that occur whenever the latest drivel from the Fed hits the tape. The futures will always be tradeable, of course, but only with the kind of close attention that's hard to muster with America in pre-holiday mode ahead of a three-day Memorial Day weekend that is just two weeks off. The work ethic, and all. I'll mention in passing that the June contract has triggered two profitable 'mechanical' shorts since the bear rally began in October, each producing a $12,000 win per contract. Considering the amount of time traders spent screwing the pooch in the process, that worked out to around $3.57 per hour. If ES falls anew to the red line, however, racking up a third 'mechanical' winner, I'll shift my focus to the 3424.50 downside target of the big pattern, shown here.
Friday's irrational exuberance was possible because there was no structural resistance between 4112 and 4161 (see chart inset). DaBoyz pushed DaFutures to within an inch of the higher number equal to the day-earlier peak, but they lacked the guts and conviction to get past it. Evidently unknown to them is that a follow-through to at least D=4199.75 is all but certain, barring a collision between Earth and an asteroid over the weekend. A pullback to the red line (4131.00), a trade I don't often recommend, would trigger a 'mechanical' buy, stop 4108.00. _____ UPDATE (May 10, 10:43 p.m.): A day of crazy price action generated many profitable trades that were reported in the chat room. The big, bullish picture is unchanged.
I've drawn a moderately bullish pattern with a 4261.25 rally target that lies 75 points above Friday's close. I'll recommend extra caution if shorting there because the target was sired by three possible 'fathers' -- i.e., the three closely spaced lows at the start of the move. If the futures blow past D, that would warrant sliding 'A' down to October's bottom and shifting 'B' one peak to the left. The resulting target is 4453.25, the most bullish number I'm comfortable billboarding at the moment. Here's the chart. Pivoteers might be interested to know that my justification for the larger pattern hinges on the subtlety of the 'B' high having slightly surpassed the circled 'external' peak. That makes A-B legitimately impulsive, and therefore capable in theory of hurling the futures as high as 4453.25. ______ UPDATE (May 4, 5:40 p.m.): A downtrend turned tortuous looks bound for this 4026.50 target. Let's see if sellers have enough gumption left after today's messy tussle to get there.
