Silver

Although August Gold's price action has somewhat altered my rally target, conditions in September Silver are unchanged.  To wit, a push through the midpoint Hidden Pivot at 21.370 would portend minimum short-term upside thereafter to 22.110.  Traders should take note of the fact that Wednesday's high at 21.285 exceeded an external peak made a week ago by a single tick. This implies that the pullback since then is corrective and that it can be bought when the uptrend resumes.  I have sketched this out hypothetically for your further guidance. _______ UPDATE (8:24 a.m. EDT):  Anyone who used  the tactic I sketched out to get long overnight would have done nicely, since Silver subsequently climbed sharply. The 22.110 target remains valid as a minimum upside objective for the near term. Please report any fills in the chat room, since I'll establish a tracking position for your further guidance if at least two subscribers say they got aboard. _______ UPDATE (Sunday night, July 13): The 22.110 target remains viable and presumably is attainable once the futures finish consolidating near 21.50. A lesser rally pattern that would yield 21.890 should be considered a 'go' once buyers push through its sibling midpoint resistance at 21.653. _______ UPDATE (8:56 a.m. ET): Silver has gotten smacked this morning, although with slightly less force than Gold. The selloff did no damage whatsoever to a still-bullish weekly chart, and it also left intact a lesser bullish pattern on the hourly chart that points to 21.725. As a practical mater, however, and for the moment, these points are moot, since the downtrend now in motion points as low as 20.785 on the hourly chart (a= 21.610 on 7/10 at 9 a.m.). _______ UPDATE (July 16, 1:15 a.m. EDT): Silver bulls have sent this vehicle into spasms in their serial

Two weeks of asphyxiating tedium have not altered the likelihood that the September will cruise to at least 22.110 once the midpoint-pivot resistance at 21.370 has been dispatched. My gut feeling is that the finishing stroke will occur precipitiously, implying that traders will have to be very nimble if they expect to climb aboard once the red line has been surpassed. _______ UPDATE: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

In response to popular demand, I'm going to start tracking silver more closely. "There is a lot of talk on the Internet about silver going up a lot around mid-July," a chat-room denizen averred on Tuesday.  Although I'm not one to be influenced by blogger buzz, if Silver is in fact developing thrust for a moon shot, the evidence should soon become apparent on the intraday charts. Most immediately, that would imply a pop through the p=21.325 midpoint Hidden Pivot shown (see inset). That would open a path to at least 22.070 , its D-target sibling. Gold stalled on a spike Monday at an analogous p, but the fact that it didn't get past it means silver and gold futures are on roughly equal footing at the moment on the bull/bear scale. (Note: The respective p and D pivots for the September contract are 21.370 and 22.110.) I've already stated that the turgid price action of the last week or so looks too much like a consolidation to suggest that anything but higher prices are coming. Those keen on catching the July contract as it leaves the launching pad will need to hunker down on the lesser charts to find a 'camouflage' opportunity. In that regard, yesterday's high at 21.210 was bullishly impulsive, albeit very subtly so. I've identified the tradable ABC coordinates so that you can see just how subtle the opportunity was.  Although the would-be trade failed to reach its D target, it did get to the midpoint pivot -- a fact that would have made the subsequent relapse painless and cost-free for the nimble trader.

I'm raising my 21.435 rally target by 15 cents, to 21.585, based on the chart shown.  The futures have been head-butting the midpoint resistance all week, but if they can close above it the target will become an odds-on bet for the near-term. If it is exceeded by more than a few ticks on first contact, that would raise the immediate ceiling to 21.675.

For once, it is bullion that is in a wicked short squeeze! The July contract will need an uncorrected rally exceeding 25.055 to break the back of the 38-month bear market, but today's rally is a nice start. A Hidden Pivot at 20.640 was as high as projections based on the intraday could have taken us, so the decisive move through it portends more strength to come. _______ UPDATE (June 20, 1:42 a.m.): DaBoyz seem to be having trouble shaking this vehicle down tonight. If 20.530 pullback low recorded Thursday afternoon holds, any rally past 20.985, a Hidden Pivot midpoint resistance, would indicate more upside to 21.435. Here are the coordinates from the 15-minute chart: A= 19.930 on 6/19 at 8:15 a.m. ET; B=20.835 at 1:00 p.m. _______ UPDATE (June 22, 10:55 p.m. ET): The futures topped our 20.985 threshold by a single tick -- not much, but sufficient to generate a bullish impulse leg, and along with it the presumption that any retracement from here is just that, and a buy.

The futures are looking robust for the first time in a long while. Yesterday's rally generated yet another bullish impulse leg on the daily chart by surpassing an external peak at 19.525 recorded on May 23. A rally that is able to exceed at least two prior peaks with each new thrust, as Silver has been doing, is demonstrating that it is raring to go. If this is indeed so, we should see a surge today that surpasses the distinctive external peak at 19.825 (see inset) from May 22. Night owls looking to climb aboard should look to do so on a resumption of the rally following a shallow pullback of perhaps 15 cents from Thursday's 19.565 high. _______ UPDATE (June 16, 2:00 a.m. ET): Silver's vital signs remain strong with Sunday night's push above the 19.825 peak flagged here earlier. The next test of resistance lies at at Hidden Pivot at 19.890. It was approached within 1.5 cents earlier tonight, but the sooner it is exceeded, the more likely the uptrend is to continue over the near term. _______ UPDATE (June 17, 12:10 a.m.): A Hidden Pivot target at 19.430 is my minimum downside projection for the near term. It can be bottom-fished with a very tight stop-loss, but if the stop is hit, expect still more weakness.  (Note to Pivoteers: On the 5-minute chart, the target comes from a=19.875 on 6/15).

July Silver's breakdown on Friday beneath a key low recorded nearly a year ago at 18.712 is a worrisome sign. Even so, the futures will have a chance to pick up support, possibly with a bounce that would be tradable, from the 18.037 midpoint Hidden Pivot shown. I am recommending tightly-stopped bottom-fishing there, or a 'camouflage' entry, but keep in mind that a decisive breach would put Silver on course for an 11.019 target I identified a while back and characterized as 'unthinkable'. _______ UPDATE (June 3, 1:35 a.m. ET): The futures hung tough yesterday, sort of, and would turn short-term bullish -- tradably so -- on a pop exceeding 18.930. This is where a barely noticeable peak occurred on the way down on Friday, and a 'b-c'-type pullback from a tick or two above it could set up an excellent 'camouflage' buying opportunity. I've sketched this hypothetically on a new chart for the guidance of traders who like getting aboard in places where the herd ain't. ______ UPDATE (7:20 p.m.): The rally stopped a penny shy of my bullish threshold -- close, but no cigar, at least so far. _______UPDATE (June 5, 11:53 p.m.): The rally tripped a buy signal at 19.040 that could take us to 19.340 or even 19.425 over the near term.  First, however, the respective midpoint pivots associated with these targets at 19.140 and 19.183 must be surmounted. _______ UPDATE (June 10, 1:00 a.m.): The midpoint resistance has migrated to 19.145, and any decisive penetration of it to the upside would augur more strength to 19.410 (60-minute chart, a=18.670 on 6/5).

By slipping below an important midpoint-pivot support at 19.133 this week, the futures have signaled more weakness over the near term to at least 18.260, the Hidden Pivot target of the pattern shown. This forecast is not chiseled in stone, but if bulls are going to turn things around they'll need to muster a push exceeding 19.175 today or tomorrow to get it rolling.

Bears have looked quite pathetic recently in their unheroic struggle to achieve the modest 18.450 downside target shown.  Their efforts would officially be categorized as a failure on a print above the 19.930 point ‘C’; however,  buyers seem to have no more energy  for that than do bears for promoting a washout. The result has been  stretch of airless tedium that could continue indefinitely, were such a thing possible.  Since the futures are near the bottom of their range, we might look to do some cautious bottom-fishing.  In practice, that might entail bidding at the p of D target of the small downtrending ABC pattern toward the right-hand edge of the chart.  I’ve sketched this hypothetically for your guidance.  _______ UPDATE (11:20 p.m.): The futures traced out  a very tradable low yesterday almost exactly as I'd sketched. If you did the calculation you could have gotten aboard for a 62-cent rally just one tick off the intraday low at 19.045 low, since the midpoint pivot that I'd labeled 'p' occurred at 19.050.