GS

We've waited patiently for the stock to reach a long-term rally target at 149.42 (see inset).  It is nearly there, and to get short I'll suggest buying four March 145 puts when the stock is within six cents of the target. The calls settled at 3.53, but it's difficult to estimate where they'll be trading with GS $2.30 higher.  We'll risk $100 theoretical on the trade, stopping ourselves out of the options if they trade for 0.25 less than we've paid for them. _______ UPDATE (12: 10 p.m. EST):  We'll use 2.75 as a basis for four March 145 puts. This is toward the high end of the buying range reported in the chat room. Let me suggest a rigid, uniform stop-loss for all players at 2.25. This is more than the $100 I'd intended to risk initially, but Goldman's rally just seems so miserably STUPID at this point that we'll want to give our short position just a little extra room.

From the obvious pattern that hits the eye when you look at Goldman's daily chart (see inset), I've culled a less obvious one that looks like it could produce a shortable top.  The Hidden Pivot target where we'll attempt to do so lies at 143.35, and I'll suggest buying four February 140 puts if the stock should get within 15 cents of the target. To manage the risk of this trade initially, I'll suggest ditching the position if the puts trade for 25 cents less than you paid for them. In theory this will limit a loss to about $100. I am recommending this because if the intuitively obvious pattern plays out rather than the somewhat idiosyncratic one that has seized my fancy, the stock will be on its way to a minimum 149.42 (which will be shortable too, by the way). _______ UPDATE (1:32 p.m. EST): We were stopped out, with subscribers reporting actual losses on the trade ranging from $100 to $125.  The stock is now on its way to the even more promising top at 149.42 mentioned above.  We'll want to short there more aggressively than we did this time, so be ready for further instructions.

We'll use the 119.91 target to get short, whack-a-mole style, if Goldman should poke its ugly little head up.  This is slightly lower than the Hidden pivot target given here earlier, but the pattern shown amply supports the new number. I'll specifically recommend that you buy two March 110 puts (or multiple thereof) with GS trading within a few cents of the target. Stop yourself out if the puts trade for 20 cents less than you paid for them. ________ UPDATE (February 22): We'll put this one aside for now, since the stock's struggle to reach the target has become too tedious to command our earnest attention.

As last week ended, one might have believed Wall Street investors had just about everything wrong.  Stocks were up sharply on bullish payroll news that flatly contradicted something every American knows – i.e., that the Great Recession is still very much with us; T-bonds were getting whacked on the flimsy assumption that the economy is picking up strength; and gold and silver were under attack because, well, because all was right with the world.  Even the hacks and scribblers who bring us the news did their bit to feed Friday’s feel-good binge.  For one, there was nary a discouraging word on the Web’s main news pages about Greece and its slow-motion bankruptcy – only a story about how Europeans were working diligently to protect the homeless from a cold snap.  And the left-tilting L.A. Times, thinking wishfully, weighed in with the most fatuous story of the day:  an analysis piece saying that the payroll numbers could prove to be a turning point in Obama’s reelection year -- the day when he shifted from slight underdog to favorite. All of which led us to post a link at Rick’s Picks to some sobering counterpoint in the form of an essay, Peak Money Arrives. Here’s an excerpt to ponder lest you grow giddy over Friday’s silly headlines: “The world is running out of money. If money is credit, and credit relies on confidence, there is not enough confidence in the financial system to supply the world with the money it needs. Since the initial credit crisis struck in 2008, credit and money have been withdrawn from the system in such staggering amounts that international trade can no longer grow. The world’s central banks are playing a rear guard action by acting as lender of last resort to banks that no longer trust

Yours truly was putting out fires yesterday when Goldman vaulted past the 113.23 target I'd drum-rolled. I queried the chat room and no one appears to have bought puts, but if you did please let me know so that I can establish a tracking position. My hunch is that we'll get a better chance to short this pig, since, when it shot past the pivot, it showed a magnetic attraction to the 118.07 peak recorded in October.  To make our effort to get short fun,  I'm going to suggest getting long while we wait to get short. (This is probably what I should have suggested in the first place, since the 113 target had allowed plenty of upside.) I see no set-it-and-forget strategies for doing so at the moment, but you should stay tuned in case Goldman stumbles and give us an easy entry opportunity. _____ UPDATE (10:36 a.m. EST): Far from giving us an easy entry opportunity, Goldman has been short-squeezed sharply higher today on an opening-bell gap. This is all to the good for us, however, since it raises the prospect of a shorting opportunity near 120.70, a Hidden Pivot that is coming into focus.   At that price, the stock will have rallied 42% from the October low at 84 -- quite an achievement for the scumbuckets who have manufactured this last-gasp opportunity to distribute their shares!

We'll be attempting to short this pig every chance we get, since boom times are not coming back for the banking business. At the moment, getting short means buying some put options if and when the stock reaches the 113.23 midpoint Hidden Pivot shown.  Our strategy will be to turn the puts into a vertical bear spread by shorting puts of a lower strike on the pullback we expect from 113.23.  Stay tuned for further details once the stock is trading above 111. _______ UPDATE (Feb 1): I had triple alerts set on Goldman charts, but Tradestation failed -- as it nearly always does -- to prompt me.  We'll continue to search for an ideal place to get short nonetheless, although it's possible today's high was it.

Stay tuned if you're as keen to short this brick as I am.  We are taking a patient approach -- and a good thing, too, since the merciless squeeze that Goldman's deft handlers have applied to the scrota of bears is starting to produce some real pain.  Indeed, yesterday's opening-bar spike refreshed the bullish impulsiveness of the 120-minute chart. It also furthered the prospect of our getting long while we wait for the stock to make a targeted top suitable for shorting aggressively.  Want to join us for the ride?  Click here for a free trial subscription to Rick’s Picks.

Hey, I've got a hot tip:  Run the other way when some tipster wants to share a piece of juicy insider information with you.  What would you have done if he'd told you earlier in the week that the notoriously well-connected banking firm was about to report horrendous earnings for the fourth quarter? You'd have jumped on some put options, right? Maybe a dozen or two March 95s, which were selling for around 3.50 with the stock loitering suspiciously near $98 on Tuesday.  Guess what: The tipster got it exactly right. Goldman's earnings could hardly have been much worse -- down 58 percent for Q4.  As for the March 95 puts, does an instant double to $7.00 sound about right? In fact, they traded for as little as 92 cents yesterday, having shed three-quarters of their value in just a few short hours as the stock soared almost $10 from the previous day's low. This breathtakingly counterintuitive outcome is one of the sleaziest bear traps I've seen sprung, and although it's ultimately going to undercut the stock's credibility as it makes its way down to, oh, $10 a share years from now, for the time being, Tuesday's short-squeeze will provide exactly the kind of buoyancy that its handlers -- a bunch of goniffs that  I wouldn't trust alone with my cat -- had sought in order to unload shares on widows and pensioners.  Sometime before this swindle runs its course over the next couple of weeks, we'll want to lay in an inventory of way-out-of-the-money puts so that we can later attempt to spread off their risk when the stock eventually plummets like a brick on ginned-up "good" news. Want to join us for the ride?  Click here for a free trial subscription to Rick's Picks.

Perhaps my "hula number" below $30 will be realized after all?  At the moment, Goldman is fighting to stay above a 97.28 Hidden Pivot midpoint whose destruction would imply further slippage to as low as...the zero axis!  Now, I'm not saying the company is about to drop dead -- only that, from a technical standpoint, the stock's oscillations around the 97.28 midpoint these last few weeks corroborates the potentially fatally bearish coordinates shown in the chart.  It would be nice to think the company everyone loves to hate is indeed in a death dive, but we'll await further evidence in the form of further progress toward an intermediate-term target at 63.09.