Google

Recent touts for this stock have been quite bearish, but we should nonetheless be prepared for a tradable bounce from the 650.69 midpoint Hidden Pivot shown. [Please note that this number has been adjusted upward to correct a Tradestation glitch.] If the rebound is strong, it could imply that Google will be among those companies that will find a way to make money during the hard of times that lie ahead. For now, though, we'll infer that the stock is likely to fall to at least 650.69.  I've set a screen alert and will furnish detailed advice for bottom-fishing in the chat room if the opportunity should arise. _______ UPDATE (4:05 p.m. EST):  Google has plummeted nearly $16 today, to a so far low of 651.23.  Any 'camo' buying opportunities will be found at the right-hand edge of the one-minute chart. I'd wait for a low within 0.20 cents of the target before you start looking, however, since, even using the one-minute bars, a 'bad' entry signal could cost you perhaps 20-30 cents per round lot.  We risk missing the trade by waiting for an exact hit at the target, but there will always be other opportunities. _______ UPDATE (10:18 a.m.):  The 650.69 midpoint pivot where I'd projected a potentially important bottom has caught this morning's low within 39 cents. If anyone bought down there, please let me know in the chat room or via e-mail so that I can establish a tracking position for your further guidance. So far, even on the one-minute chart, there have been no 'camo' entry signals, but that looks like it's about to change.  _______ UPDATE (10:24 a.m.) I've heard from two buyers so far, with 'Dinger' reporting a so-far worst-case buy at 650.75. He has covered half at 656.12.  I'll recommend exiting the

A good time to step aside and let Google fall -- to as low as 627.24 if the pattern shown (see inset) fails to retrace above 705.50. If not, its 666.37 midpoint support would logically become our minimum downside objective for the near term. Alternatively, the downdraft was so sharp that there are no good handholds for camouflageurs to leverage for buying purposes.  A jerry-rigged 'external' peak at 706.18 might serve, but this would be expert play for even the nimblest of traders.  _______ UPDATE (November 5, 12:24 a.m. EST):  I've updated the chart to show not only that Google has not exactly come roaring back from mid-October's devastating, one-day plunge, but that it would take an unpaused thrust exceeding the 706.70 'external' peak shown to hint of a resurgence by bulls.  Broadly speaking, this is not how stocks in bull markets are supposed to act.

Google's failure to correct all the way down to a Hidden Pivot target at 722 (see inset) is tentatively bullish and would be confirmed by a short upthrust exceeding 762.20, the higher of two external peaks shown in the chart.  That would create a promising impulse leg on the hourly chart -- one with enough power, presumably, to end the two-week presumptive consolidation that has followed October 5's all-time high at 778.  A low-risk 'camo' buying opportunity would beckon if a fleeting rally were to slightly exceed peak #2 and retrace in b-c fashion.

Google's gap-up opening last Thursday has turned into a bear trap that tightened with Friday's nasty selloff in the final hour.  It projects to 735.47, but a last-gasp feint up to the p midpoint, 746.98, should be viewed as a shorting opportunity if tightly stopped.  Assuming your options account is qualified for naked positions, I'd suggesting shorting two October 750 calls if the underlying stock rallies to within 12 cents of the 746.98 pivot. Stop yourself out, however, if GOOG goes above 746.21.  I estimate the calls will be selling for around 20.70.  _______ UPDATE (11:43 a.m. EDT):  The stock dove this morning at the bell without an uptick.  Because sellers overshot the 735.47 target, we'll move point 'A' up to October 5's 774.38 to yield a new minimum downside target at 722.41.

Unlike Apple, Google barely flinched last week as the broad averages came down. A 773.69 rally target remains in effect if and when the stock takes flight again. From a camouflage standpoint, the best potential buying opportunity I can find on the lesser charts would use a 'timed buy-stop' on a fleeting pullback from just above the 757.99 peak shown. _______ UPDATE (October 5, 1:29 p.m. EDT): The stock gapped on the opening to a so-far high this morning of 774.38, achieving our target with 69 cents to spare.  That could be it for a while, but longs who caught a piece of the $14 rally should be on the sidelines now.  FYI, using the 3-minute chart there was an easy-as-pie 'camouflage' short from 772.92. It came on the 9:03 a.m. bar from the pattern a=774.29 (10:39 a.m.), b=772.00 (10:52 a.m.) and c=773.50 (11:00 a.m.)  All three coordinates are single-bar, with an impulse leg that breached the required internal and external lows.

The price action driving Google higher has been so powerful and relentless that I checked the weekly chart to see whether there might be something bigger pushing the stock than Hidden Pivot patterns discernible on the daily and intraday charts. Sure enough, there's a cycle begun from 289.45 (using a one-off point 'A') that projects to 773.69, a tad above the 770.28 target of a lesser pattern noted here yesterday. What the foregoing implies is that not only will there be double stopping power just above $770, but that Google could be magnetically drawn to those number before it seriously corrects. The stock has been too wild for me to suggest a specific strategy in advance (and there is the chance that an important high was seen yesterday on a key reversal from 764.89). Even so, I am proffering these numbers nonetheless so that you can use them as aggressively as you dare.

Although we use Apple as our main bellwether, Google deserves attention as well because it's a 'market stock' that tends to accurately reflect the prevailing mood on Wall Street. Right now GOOG is stalled at a minor midpoint resistance at 681.50 (see inset), but if it closes above that Hidden Pivot for two consecutive days, look for a follow-through straightaway to the 703.75 'D' target of the pattern shown.  If the Dow were to follow suit, it would imply a 3% rally of about 400 points.  ______ UPDATE (September 10, 2:23 a.m. EDT): Buyers impaled our target on Friday, implying an easy move to the next, at 716.43.  As you can see for yourself in the refreshed chart I've provided, the target looks appealing as a short, and so I'll suggest doing so -- 200 shares, stop 716.75, good till canceled._______ UPDATE (September 19, 12:39 a.m. EDT):  DaBoyz used the staged weakness of a bear-trap opening to set up a $10 short-squeeze rally to 716.74 -- 31 cents from the target flagged above -- in the first 30 minutes of the session. After scuddling sideways for the next five hours, the stock took off again, leaving shorts on the ropes at the bell. Minimum predicted upside in the early going on Wednesday:  723.11.  Shorts should risk no more than 0.20 on trades initiated at that price. _______ UPDATE (6:26 p.m. EDT): Yesterday's short-squeeze rally blew past 723.48, implying more upside over the very near-term to at least 734.45.  As always, an easy move through that target, a Hidden Pivot, would imply that bulls have yet more firepower to deploy. _______ UPDATE (September 23, 11:41 p.m. EDT): Friday's rally hit 734.92, fulfilling our target.  That resistance is not exactly chopped liver, so if GOOG blows past it today, infer that the

GOOG appears bound at least $20 lower, to the 574.91 'D' target of the orthodox pattern shown. This stock has always been easy pickings on the 15-minute chart, so I'll suggest camouflageurs start looking there for the expected turn.  If you'd prefer to use a straight buy order, try a 574.97 bid, stop 574.84, good-till-canceled. _______ UPDATE (June 1):  The stock gapped down $10 on the opening, printing 571.79 to begin the day and negating the trade suggested above. (Side note: If you had had a straight bid in at the bell along with the stop, the orders might have been filled at the same price -- i.e., a scratch, less commissions.) With all of the small stuff used up, it's time to open our bearish imagination to the prospect of a fall to 435.90, the 'p' midpoint associated with a 'D' target at -- better sit down for this, Google fans -- 201.55.  Here are the coordinates, from the weekly chart: A=716.00 (12/28/07); B= 247.30 (11/21/08); and C=670.25

It’s a sad time for America when a firm that does what Facebook does is on track to become one of our largest companies. Based on capitalization, the web-based lubricator of social interaction could be in the top 50 within a few years, or even in the top 25 if analysts’ wildest expectations pan out.  Facebook’s IPO promises to top Google’s $27 billion offering, reaping early backers a giant windfall.  But wouldn’t it be far better if a company that actually made something were to enjoy such extravagant enthusiasm on Wall Street?  Facebook of course makes nothing, and what it sells is of little economic value to anyone. And yet its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is about to become one of the wealthiest men in the world. A gushy tribute to his impending monetary success appeared on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal yesterday. Written by a Rutgers anthropology professor named Lionel Tiger, this paean to the biggest time-waster in the galaxy saw Facebook’s inventor as “bestrid[ing] vast business numbers once dreamt of only by toothpaste and soft-drink makers. This reflects a new commercial demography in which the consumer is not someone who wants something necesssary, but rather one who seeks to assert simply what he is. And the tool he uses in order to become nothing more or less than an efficient, interesting and socially propsereous primate is the Facebook page.” Hefner’s ‘Genius’ Karl Marx himself could not have come up with a more powerful indictment of capitalism or of the soulless craving it would seek to create for things we don’t really need. And yet, although he doesn’t say so explicitly, Prof. Tiger would seem to place Zuckerberg – whom he labels “the world’s richest primatologist” -- in the Pantheon of human genius with DaVinci, Einstein and