February

I've synched up Silver's chart with Gold's to show that the former is slightly outperforming the latter, leading the way, as it were. Last week's penetration of the midpoint Hidden Pivot at 24.70 was not sufficiently impressive to make further progress to D=26.62 a surefire bet, but at least it's a start. Similarly to gold, a pullback to the green line at 23,744, especially early in the week, would signal an attractive 'mechanical' buy.  We may be able to improvise on-the-fly, however, if there is not enough weakness to bring the futures down to our niggardly bid.

Last week's rally, which occurred almost entirely with a leap on Monday, brought the futures to within easy distance of testing my recommendation to short the green line (x=75.88) 'mechanically'.  The textbook stop-loss would be just above the 'C' high at 79.57, implying nearly $15,000 of entry risk on four contracts. I will try to provide real-time guidance for this if there is strong interest in the chat room, but in any case we should be able to determine with a high degree of confidence whether the mini-bear market begun in late September from around 88 is over.

Feb Gold has been the unwitting slave of  the bullish pattern show, with a 2250.00 target that has been in play since mid-October. The bounce off last week's low was encouraging, since the futures managed to finish the week with a gain that left it comfortably above the midpoint of the weekly range. Nasty takedowns are still possible, but $2000 may have become a floor beneath which bulls would swarm thin, insincere offers. _______ UPDATE (Dec 19, 1:47 p.m.): I said in the chat room that Feb Gold would hit 2086, but Martin Armstrong's cautionary cited in the chat room has reminded me that I should wait for that to happen instead of pretending I have a crystal ball that says it will. The chart is mildly encouraging because the recent high at 2152 impulsively exceeded May's 2140 peak. That means the subsequent plunge to 1987 was/is corrective. But there are no guarantees that the theoretical buy signal at x=2037 will get the futures to p=2086.4. I do hope this happens, however, since price action at p can tell us a lot about the health and sincerity of the uptrend since October. In theory, the bullish impulsiveness of the weekly chart could survive a plunge all the way down to 1845, even if few bulls would be left standing to cheer it.

Silver has pulled out of a steep dive that retraced more than 80% of the rally begun in mid-November from 22.26. We are likely to know soon whether the reversal is capable of achieving the 26.865 target shown, since a crucial resistance lies just above in the form of a Hidden Pivot midpoint resistance at 24.82, As always, an easy penetration of this obstacle, or better yet two consecutively weekly closes above it, would suggest bulls are back in charge.  This seems very likely because the impulse leg that drove the futures to their most recent high at 26.34 surpassed two 'external' peaks and one 'internal' without taking a breather.

The downtrend's so-far failure to reach the 64.80 target could be a sign of incipient strength or even the start of a reversal of the mini-bear market that has cut oil's price by 23% since it topped in September at 88.21 a barrel. Regardless, the February contract would become a fetching 'mechanical' short at the green line (x=75.88), stop 79.58. If there's an expression of interest in the chat room at the appropriate time, I'll provide guidance for doing so with a 'camouflage' trigger.

Friday's dastardly takedown put the February contract on course for a drop to at least 2001.50. If that Hidden Pivot support fails to brake gold's fall, look for more slippage to 1986.90, calculated by shifting the pattern's point 'A' high five bars to the left. The scumballs who manipulate gold have demonstrated that they are capable of pulling out the rug whenever they please. However, given the run-up to a new record high at 2152 just before the sniper's head-shot, it has become more difficult for them to convince us that gold needs to correct much below 2000 while it vamps for a shot at 2200 and higher. _______ UPDATE (Dec 13, 11:03 p.m.): The futures trampolined  $65 from within $1 of the 1986.90 bottoming target billboarded above.  Everybody happy?

As Silver plummeted on Friday, few subscribers would have been focused on the green line, where the March contract will become an all-but-obligatory 'mechanical' buy. Such trades are not supposed to leave one feeling comfortable, and this one would surely qualify as menacing. Note, however, that the implication is not that the futures will necessarily  achieve D=27.16 after touching x=22.67, only that they are more like to bounce to p=24.16 than to fall first below C=21.17. We can manage the risk of this opportunity with a smidgen of 'camouflage if it materializes', so please nudge me in the chat room if you're actively engaged. ______ UPDATE (Dec 13, 11:11 p.m.): No one nudged me, but DaBoyz goosed the March contract $1.34 off a 22.78 low that missed touching my green-line 'launching pad' by 12 cents. Our attention is now on this very tradable pattern, with a 25.47 D target. The slight overshoot of p=24.13 implies that D is no worse than an even bet to be reached. 

If this so-far modest bounce is going to get legs, it should easily penetrate the 71.74 midpoint resistance of the reverse pattern shown by no later than Tuesday. A decisive move past it would make the futures an odds-on bet to achieve D=74.40. As always, an easy move through so clear and compelling a Hidden Pivot would imply that the uptrend is likely to continue. However, the rally will need to get past the pattern's 79.67 peak to suggest that a test of autumn's highs near 88 is coming. _______ UPDATE (Dec 13, 10:18 p.m.): Is this rally the start of an important trend change? If so, it will push past the 71.10 'D' target of this reverse pattern without much effort. Today's thrust was sufficient to trigger a theoretical buy and some profit taking later in the session, but it will take more than that to reverse hard selling that has persisted for the last ten weeks.

March Silver has moved into a thicket of prior peaks, but there should be little doubt it will surpass them and head unhesitatingly toward the 27.16 target shown. The December contract we'd been tracking has stalled at p2, but the equivalent obstacle here has been exceeded on a closing basis, attesting to the power of the move. The big pattern has yielded up just one 'mechanical' buy so far, but the rally has steepened since, suggesting that a swoon to the red line, never mind the green one, to set up a 'mechanical' buy is unlikely. In practice, this means we'll need to find a reverse pattern on a chart of small degree to get long enroute to 27.16.