Silver futures fared worse than their gold counterpart last week, leaving a 'mechanical' buy triggered on December 29 hanging by a thread. The weekly low at 22.888 came within a dime of stopping out the trade, which I did not recommend. There is a voodoo number not far below the pattern's point 'C' low where bottom-fishing could be attempted with relatively little risk, but we'll nature take its course before we hatch any bullish plans.
The futures made a little headway toward the 2184.80 target with a marginal penetration of the pattern's midpoint resistance, p=2086.40. The target is slightly higher than the one given earlier, which used a one-off 'A' on the hourly chart. A pullback to the green line (x=2037.10) should be treated as a gift, since it would enable a 'mechanical' buy that looks quite fetching in prospect. The implied 50-point stop-loss would demand the use of a 'camouflage' trigger designed to cut entry risk by at least 90%. I will furnish timely details if possible, so be sure to check your email 'Notifications' if the trade gets close. _____ UPDATE (Jan 5): Sellers pushed the futures down to the green line, triggering a 'mechanical' buy with an unacceptably wide stop-loss at 1987.80. I did not put out a trade because there was no a-b segment clear enough to set up a lower-risk, reverse-pattern entry. We'll spectate for now, but with the goal of jumping in on the long side if the right opportunity comes along.
Friday's selloff early in the session put Silver a tradable step ahead of Feb Gold, since it triggered a 'mechanical' buy at the green line (x=23.80) that has yet to occur in gold. There are no guarantees that the theoretically profitable bounce that occurred subsequently will keep on going, but the bullish signal would remain viable nonetheless, even if the futures slip beneath 23.80. The signal offers no assurance of a further move to D=26.86, only the likelihood of a profitable one-level move from x to p.
Feb Crude came down hard after peaking last week 30 cents above a level where I'd suggested looking for a set-up to get short. There was no discussion of this in the chat room, so I have not established a tracking position. The nasty tumble is good news for motorists, since it implies that $3 gas will be with us for at least a little while longer, Here in Florida, and elsewhere in the U.S. (although surely not in California), there is a chance that the price of premium gas will fall below $3. Depending on how sellers handle the 70.34 midpoint support, the weakness could continue down to as low as D=64.49.
Not sure why the rally couldn't go the extra millimeter to achieve the 2086.40 rally target I'd set as a minimum target last week. To ease the burden on intermittently enfeebled buyers, I've lowered the bar slightly by shifting to a slightly higher 'A', a pretty little one-off low that I might have used initially. The correspondingly low p at 2084.60 hasn't changed the fact that bulls will need to blow past it to become a good bet to reach D=2181.20. In the meantime, don't pass up an opportunity to buy a swoon to x=2036.20, provided you know how to set up a 'camo' trigger to reduce the theoretical entry risk of nearly $20,000 on four contracts.
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.
