June

Gold has been leaden for a month, presumably to set up a nasty surprise. But for whom -- bulls, or bears? My hunch is the latter, but we'll keep an open mind just in case. They evidently were fixated on the 2050.60 target shown in the chart and may have been patting themselves on the back when the futures whipped around and shot up to a marginal new high that stopped every last one of them out. We shouldn't underestimate the lingering pain, nor their natural desire to even the score. Look for wicked swings to precede a drop to at least p=1939.10 if there's going to be a consolidation for another big leg up.

The S&PS have been in a constipated uptrend since around April 5, tacking on just 35 points, or around 0.7%, since regaining their footing after a steep rally begun in late March. The pattern shown projects a move to 4287.25, provided buyers can push this brick decisively above p=4191.88.  They seemed content to beat each other's brains in all week, However, especially with Friday's excruciating chop. The week ended with a slight gain on a 'mechanical' buy triggered Thursday at the green line. We'll stick with the pattern shown for trading purposes since it's all we've got at the moment. _______ UPDATE (Apr 23, 5:43 p.m.): Because of today's hard selling, I've switched to a big, bearish reverse pattern with a 3980.00 target, or as low as 3818.00 if the higher number is breached decisively. The second target comes from fully extending the rABC pattern by using the marquee 'A'.  If today's weakness is about to snowball, either pattern should work well for analysis or trading, including bottom-fishing at p=4058.50 of the larger pattern. Here's the chart.

Buyers on a roll for the last month have 7'd out just above the 2050.60 target shown.  An alternative target at 2079.40 still looks likely to be reached, but probably not straightaway. The lower target must have been widely anticipated, since the futures head-faked above it a week later just to jack shorts who would have been celebrating the refreshing but short-lived $54 drop a week earlier. We'll focus on short-term opportunities for the time being, with a mildly bearish bias. _______ UPDATE (Apr 19, 11:45 p.m.): My explicit guidance for getting long this morning produced a winner that could have been worth as much as $9,600 on four contracts. Traders would have experienced little stress on the ascent, since the trade proceeded straightforwardly from a voodoo number that caught the intraday low to the exact tick. Here's the chart. For further details, and to determine whether you could have followed my instruction, see related posts from 8:12 a.m. forward. _______ UPDATE (Apr 20, 10:52 p.m.): Navel-gazing has driven gold psychotic, even if its price action is as predictable as ever. The June contract is currently bound for the 2028.80 target shown in this chart -- and yes, it is shortable if you know how to manage the risk tightly. _______ UPDATE (Apr 21, 8:22 a.m.):  The bearish, 1963.00 target in this chart goes against gold's daily drug habit of reversing overnight smashes as the regular session begins, but that's what will happen if sellers break p=1993.80 decisively. If you're planning on bottom-fishing, be alert to the possibility that using the slightly higher 'A' available in the chart could lower the bottom from which the futures are likely to bounce to 1961.60.

A chart stretching back to November provides no compelling technical basis for saying anything interesting, let alone bullish or bearish, about what might happen next. It's anyone's guess, although the June contract would have to eat through thick layers of supply to achieve new recovery highs above February's 4244 peak.  Poor earnings would help, since the mere expectation of them is usually enough to get stocks sold out before the news hits. With or without grim tidings to drive the rally, we can be assured that intraday highs and lows will continue to be predictable enough to give us an edge. Friday's peak, for instance, missed a 'D' Hidden Pivot target that was as obvious as the punchline of a mile-long stretch of Burma Shave signs. _______ UPDATE (Apr 20, 11:12 p.m.): There are some days when we should just avert our eyes and this was one of them.  A sinking VIX belies the nuttiness animating stocks these days. We should start loading up on puts today and Monday, because I strongly doubt that these histrionics are torquing the market for an ebullient move higher. That seems doubly true with The Wall Street Journal's bullish spin on...everything starting to sound increasingly desperate.  DaBoyz are getting ready to pull the plug.

We've been using the 2079.40 target shown as a minimum upside objective, but there's a yellow flag out at the moment because Friday's high at 2049.20 precisely coincided with Hidden Pivot resistance levels associated with two bullish patterns, including the one targeted on 2079.40.  The pattern has already enabled a 'mechanical' buy at the green line that could have been worth as much as $6400 per contract. A second such signal would occur on a pullback to 1985.10, stop 1953.60, but I'll suggest tuning to the chat room if the opportunity gets close, since theoretical entry risk exceeds $3000 per contract. ______ UPDATE (Apr 11, 9:52 p.m. EDT): The futures look all but certain to achieve the 2029.50 target of this pattern, but the picture would brighten still move if this thrust can take out the 2031 peak to the left without pausing for breath. _______ UPDATE (Apr 12, 5:49 p.m.): The rally accomplished what we'd asked of it, then gold did its by-now-obligatory Daily Dive. A score more of them will not change the fact that this is a bull market and that all upside targets provided here for the foreseeable future will be achieved more or less exactly, if sometimes tortuously.

Bulls and bears both held their cards close to their chests last week. The latter cannot bluff effectively or for long, however, since bullion is in a bull market. However, the question on everyone's minds is whether gold is overdue for a punitive correction of the $350 run-up since November. Price action relative to the pennant formation shown in the chart (inset) should tell us soon whether a bearish outcome is likely, but there is nothing that I can discern in the chart that argues for betting the ranch on a particular scenario. For now, brace for savage, meaningless feints. most of them lower, since the quasi-criminals responsible for gold's gratuitous swoons have sufficient control over the futures to peg their price nearly anywhere over the short term. ______ UPDATE (Apr 3, 5:37 p.m. EDT): The ass-bandits took out the lower trendline on very light volume to begin the day, then bought aggressively to drive the futures nearly to the upper trendline by midday. I've altered the pennant somewhat to keep the futures within bounds, but don't expect the thieves to pull the same stunt if the break-out is to the upside, since they won't be able to trick buyers as easily as they suckered sellers. Here's the new chart.  _______ UPDATE (Apr 4, 12:13 p.m.): Gold's impaling spike through p=2016 this morning implies more upside over the near term to at least 2079.40. Here's the chart -- and yes, the pattern should work well for 'mechanical' buying on swoons. _______ UPDATE (Apr 5, 10:01 p.m.): The futures will be headed down to exactly 2018.00 straightaway if support at the 2029 midpoint Hidden Pivot fails. _______ UPDATE (Apr 6, 7:45 a.m.): Well, I guess we'll just have to see about that. June Gold cracked $2029 overnight, then reversed as it nearly always

After shaking off a gratuitous midweek smackdown, June Gold was bounding on Friday toward the Hidden Pivot rally target at 2052.00 shown in the thumbnail chart. Buyers looked sufficiently revved up to achieve this objective easily within the next couple of days. If they do, and especially if they close above it for two consecutive days, you can confidently infer the futures are on their way to at least 2154.50, the next Hidden Pivot resistance of importance. It is derived from the pattern on the daily chart starting with A=1830.20 on March 8, and B=2031.70 on March 20. _______ UPDATE (Mar 29, 7:56 p.m. EDT): Here's a more challenging view of gold -- a pennant formation that visually raises doubts about 2052.00 being a lock-up. If the June contract cracks the lower trendline, I'd brace for more disappointment.

On a long-term chart, the exceptionally clean reverse pattern shown reveals some mildly disturbing signs that we hadn't detected before. First there was the dip beneath the pattern's D target at 3584.75. The 80-point overshoot amounts to 2.2%, and although that may not seem like much, for a pattern this crisp, any breach exceeding even 1% should be viewed as moderately bearish. The stall on the rebound at p=4196 is not quite as compelling because the Hidden Pivot levels were already spent. However, the bounce from D appears to have lacked guts because it died well shy of the 'external' peak just to the left. All of these factors together do not necessarily spell collapse, but they argue for trading the S&Ps with a bearish bias. Here's a weekly chart of the June contract that projects to as low as 3425.75 if sellers take out p=3834.88 decisively. The futures were a spec buy when they nearly touched the red line, but because the low missed it by five points, a run-up to the green line would not trigger a 'mechanical' short under a strict interpretation of our rules. I've offered a bigger picture than usual because smaller ones show an impacted mess that is best traded on sub-hourly charts. _______ UPDATE (Mar 22, 9:00 p.m. EDT): This afternoon's universally expected outbreak of mental illness produced no significant changes in the technical picture. A Mexican standoff began on Feb 13 when the futures reversed from p=3824 of this presumptive bear-market pattern. This was a logical place for a trend, even a major one, to end, but we will continue to bide our time trading the swings until a clearer signal comes. Bears may be feeling burned out by now, but that is no reason for them to think the bear rally

Gold remains a study in disappointment and tedium. We've focused on a too-obvious pattern with a bearish target at 1756.90, and even shorted it on paper at 1851.20,  but with no great expectation of the futures getting there. Nor are they likely to achieve the very bullish, 2082 target of a much larger pattern any time soon. If you'd prefer to trade this vehicle nonetheless, try bottom-fishing in the range 1787-1792 with a 'camouflage' set-up using a chart of five-minute degree or less. _______ UPDATE (Jul 1, 9:27 a.m.): The futures are in a presumably meaningless bounce from 1783.40. That's below my bottom-fishing range, which was tied to a p2 'secondary pivot' at 1788.30.  The $6 overshoot is sufficient for us to presume that the next leg down, if and when it comes., will be an even-odds bet to reach the worst-case, 1756.90 target. Ray-rah-sis-boom-bah, Gold! You go, girl!