Chalk up a frustrating day for traders who came to their monitors yesterday with nothing in their quivers save Hidden Pivots and a winning attitude. There are days when our technical runes warn us not to expect much in the way of opportunity, and yesterday was just such a day. We should have known as much before we let the stock market put us in a trance during the second half of what was to become a tediously meaningless session. An hour earlier, during a weekly tutorial session held online for graduates of the Hidden Pivot Course, there were technical signs all over the charts suggesting that we might better use the remaining hours of the day by going fishing. And we don’t mean bottom-fishing as traders, but rather, fishing for trout or salmon — or even for bass, assuming one would be so foolish as to risk making an otherwise pleasant outing in a Boston Whaler as frustrating as one spent waiting to pull the trigger on a trade.  (Yes, we do give the bass in particular credit for being smarter than most of us. But other traders?  They are mostly – and fortunately for us — headless chickens, and if you can’t out-think them on a given day, it’s probably time to seek another line of work.)

Anyway, over the next couple of hours, the market delivered on its technical promise to be as boring as possible, and so it went — until exactly 3:35 p.m. EST. That’s when one of our favorite trading vehicles, the E-Mini S&Ps, exploded with the spike that you see in the chart.  This wilding spree came as no surprise to us, having been precisely anticipated in the Rick’s Picks chat room via the following recommendation at 2:29 p.m. “ES double-D pivot at 1337.25 can be traded…either via camouflage or with a two-tick stop-loss (i.e. at 1136.75).”  In layman’s language, we were looking for the futures, which had been falling since the opening bell, to fall a further 4 points before making a tradable low at exactly 1337.25. Moreover, we were suggesting buying at that price with a stop-loss so tight that the trade would have risked (in theory) just $25 plus commissions. Can you guess what happened then?  Actually, there is no need to guess, since the outcome is plain to see on the chart above if you look closely. For in fact, the futures turned sharply from 1237.75 – two ticks above where we’d suggested bidding. As so it went. We’ll get ‘em next time, was about all one could say.

Not Greek to Us

The rally supposedly was triggered by an announcement that some Greek politicians was about to deliver a “letter of commitment” to lenders. Could the politician have known that he was merely an unwitting pawn in the mysterious cosmology that causes stocks and commodities to turn on a dime from places that are absolutely predictable? (Skeptical about this claim? We invite you to click here to find out more about the upcoming Hidden Pivot Webinar and to obtain a $50 discount coupon for the event. If you would instead like to try a free subscription to Rick’s Picks that will give you access to the chat room where the E-Mini S&P trading recommendation above appeared, then click here.)