The pattern shown is gnarly, but Friday's pause precisely at its midpoint Hidden Pivot implies we're on the right track. The entire week was spent head-butting the 95.89 target of a smaller pattern, but the close above it suggests higher prices lie in store. This conclusion would be validated if DXY can close above p=96.09 for two consecutive weeks, or trade 65 or more cents above it intraday. At some point the dollar's universally unexpected strength is going to start hurting U.S.-based multinationals, but not before the chimps decide where they're going to rotate all of the OPM next.
Did you notice last week's tone change? The whole, eternally benighted world of pundits, economists, Bloomberg news producers, forecasters et al. has been disbelieving the bond rally as the Fed's ultimately unredeemable portfolio of Treasury debt has grown from merely massive to intergalactic in size. Now the talking heads are having to change their tune in order to catch up with charts that have been no worse than neutral on T-Bonds for months. So what "story" are they telling themselves to explain what they were unwilling to see back in January? Simply that we are witnessing a global "flight to safety" as Covid threatens to tank the economies of Europe and China yet again. Of course, nothing says "safety" like the whole world piling onto the shoddy, brittle edifice of U.S. debt. Trust your instincts: This trend cannot end well. In the meantime, the technical outlook calls for at least somewhat higher T-Bond prices and correspondingly lower yields. On the long bond, that would imply a descent to 1.70% from a current 1.91%. If that level is breached we could see 1.54%. At some point, the lower rates accompanying a bear market in stocks will be seen as reflecting not a flight to safety, but as a manifestation of the catastrophic deflation that has been bearing down on the financial planet, steadily gathering size and strength since the S&L crisis of the early 1990s. Dollar Short Squeeze = Deflation While economists have kept busy trying not to acknowledge that T-Bonds are moving in the wrong direction, a rising dollar has equally confounded them, as well as investors who bet on inflation. Although lower yields are ostensibly benign, albeit faintly symptomatic of the coming deflationary bust, a strong dollar is capable of wrecking the global financial system overnight. I've written here
Updates for this vehicle were starting to thicken with interesting but minor targets, so here's a fresh tout that features the most compelling of them, 4760.00. You can still attempt shorting at 4724.25, which looks appealing for a short-term payoff, but the Hidden Pivot at 4760.00 looks like a more likely place for a major top to occur. With nearly 30 points of upside to the lower number, your short-term bias should be bullish, with the goal of building a profit cushion to try something bolder when the prospective top is reached.
The futures were looking like a fabulous short on Friday afternoon -- until they weren't. Around mid-session, the December contract topped a single tick above a 4678.25 target I'd flagged during an impromptu session earlier in the day. The subsequent pullback could have been worth as much as $800 per contract, but the opportunity proved short-lived when short-covering drove this wack-job to an intraday high at 4685.00. That brought the pattern shown, with a 4723.75 target, into sharp relief. For now, use the p2 'secondary pivot' at 4699.13 as a minimum upside objective for the near term. _______ UPDATE (Nov 15, 6:37 p..m. ET): Sellers generated a bearish impulse leg on the hourly chart after the futures failed to achieve the 4699 rally objective flagged above. Now, expect more weakness to at least p=4666.75, a Hidden Pivot with little value for bottom-fishing because it coincides with the intraday low. Its decisive breach would portend more weakness to at least p2=4659.00 or to d=4651.50 if any lower. Here's the chart. ______ UPDATE ( 9:35 p.m.): Short covering has negated the point 'C' high of my bearish pattern, causing me to lose interest entirely in whatever this headless chicken does over the next 12 hours. _______ UPDATE (Nov 16, 4:36 p.m.): Shorting the 4724.25 target of this pattern looks moderately promising. A 'camo' set-up is recommended, but you can use a limit offer and a 1.25-point stop loss if you want to play fast and loose.
Bulls remain on track to achieve the 1916.90 target flagged here earlier. It would take a little more more oomph, however, to push past 'Annapurna' at 1922.00 in order to generate a robust impulse leg on the daily chart. A further surge into the void above that peak would make December Gold a tempting short from the 'discomfort zone', if only for scalp-trade. Alternatively, a surprise plunge would trigger a 'mechanical' buy at p=1797.40, stop 1757.50. That's $16,000 of entry risk on four contracts, so check the chat room for 'camo' alternatives before you leap. ______ UPDATE (Nov 16, 5:11 p.m. ET): Today's stupid, and presumably gratuitous, plunge tripped a 'mechanical' buy signal at x=1855.20, stop 1843.20. Mechanical trades work best when we are attempting to exploit pointlessly violent swings, so this set-up should offer a pretty good test of the theory. _______ UPDATE (Nov 17, 8:55 a.m.): A pretty good test, indeed. The futures surged to p=1867.10 overnight, producing a textbook profit-taking opportunity that would have netted a nearly $4800 gain for anyone who held onto four contracts acquired at X=1855.20 as advised.
December Silver's climb has been too strong to afford us a 'mechanical' buying opportunity on the daily chart, although there have been less risky plays possible in smaller time frames. In any event, it looks like a very good bet to achieve the 26.48 target shown. That would refresh the bullish impulsiveness of the daily chart, clearing the way for a shot at May's key high at 28.92. A pullback to p=23.95 would trip a 'mechanical' buy, stop 23.10. That's $4200 of entry risk per contract, so the trade should be attempted only if you are familiar with 'camouflage' set-ups or have a method of your own to drastically limit risk. _______ UPDATE (Nov 16, 5:15 p.m. ET): December Silver's nitwit dive tripped a 'mechanical' buy identical to the one in gold (see my tout) at x=24.89, stop 24.59. Let's paper-trade this one together unless you've got 'camo' chops. _______ UPDATE (Nov 17, 1:22 p.m.): The paper trade crushed it, producing an overnight gain of as much as $7400 on four contracts.
The chart is bullish, but not very. A strong rally from the 157^03 low recorded on October 22 looks spent without having taken out any old highs. This suggests the pullback begun last week will need to correct for perhaps another 4-7 days before the futures can attempt a new launch. If the selloff comes down to the green line (x=159^30), it would trigger a mildly appealing 'mechanical' buy, stop 157^03. The implied entry risk on four contracts would exceed $10,000, so check the Trading Room for guidance before you attempt this. _______ UPDATE (Nov 15, 6:52 p.m. ET): In a chat room post this morning, I ratcheted up my enthusiasm for the trade suggested above. I'd wait till the futures touch the green line (159^30) before fashioning a 'camo' entry trigger, but here's an example with just $100 of theoretical entry risk per contract that triggered and is profitable at the moment. The purpose of these camo trades is not to make a pile of money, but to take advantage of bigger-picture opportunities with initial risk reduced to a practical minimum. ______UPDATE (Nov 16, 5:20 p.m.): The futures have tripped two profitable 'camo' trades off a big-picture 'mechanical' X at 159^30 that would be stopped at 157^02. Neither went the distance, but the goal is to hold 25% of the original 'camo' position for a swing at the fences. I will vet similar trades if there's interest in the chat room. Our expectation is to make at least a little money even if the bigger trade doesn't work out.
The bounce on Thursday interrupted a punitive downtrend, triggering a 'mechanical' short at x=64,166 in the process. Bertie has only given one false 'mechanical' signal since I began tracking it several years ago, but it was a buy signal. I've mostly tuned out minor 'sells,' since it has been obvious all along that bitcoin was headed much higher. That is still the case, and I am sticking with the 89,780 bull-market target given here previously. But I am going to give the bearish chart shown the benefit of the doubt for now. If the 'mechanical' signal is correct Bertie should fall to at least p=62,729, but possibly to p2=61,291. I doubt the damage would be much worse than that, but if a plunge demolishes p, we'd have to take the possibility of d=59,853 being reached more seriously. _______ UPDATE (Nov 15, 7:10 p.m. ET): I've raised 'C' of the still-bearish pattern to the intraday high at 66,344. It suggests that a cautious bid at 63,111 could be used for bottom-fishing, but don't risk more than relative pocket change. A decisive breach of this secondary Hidden Pivot would portend more slippage to at least p2=61,494. _______ UPDATE (Nov 16, 5:41 p.m.): For a very rare change Bertie actually exceeded a 'd' correction target. This development warrants our attention, but it is hardly the death knell for this lunatic-powered vehicle. If all remains (relatively) well, it should be easy to make money on the long side with 'mechanical' set-ups over the next couple of weeks. _______ UPDATE (Nov 18, 8:58 p.m.): The correction would need to hit 55,652 to equal the one in September. This reversal pattern implies Bertie can be bottom-fished with a tight 'camo' set-up.
AAPL has looked pretty punk for the last couple of weeks, but I am proffering a bullish chart nonetheless because bears couldn't drive the stock down to a correction target at 145.95 last week. (It remains theoretically valid.) The stock in fact reversed almost precisely from the p2 secondary pivot of the pattern, which often foretells strong moves in the opposite direction. We should hold the oohs and ahhs, however, until such time as buyers show their stuff at p=153.40 (corrected). This midpoint pivot can be used as a minimum upside projection for now, subject to revision if the stock should dive below C=146.41. _______ UPDATE (Nov 17, 4:19 p.m. EST): This morning's adroitly engineered short-squeeze did what mere bullish buying could never have accomplished, pushing AAPL decisively above p=153.40 and an important prior peak. Factor in the subsequent close above the pivot, and it all but guarantees that D=160.38 will be reached. ______ UPDATE (Nov 18, 9:07 p.m.): The guarantee of a move to 160.38 (see above) was all but fulfilled today when the crime syndicate that works AAPL goosed it to 158.67, courtesy of yet more short-covering.
John Doerr, the venture capital zillionaire, thinks America should go all-in on measures to control the weather. Although Doerr fears it may be too late to save Earth and its inhabitants from the ravages of global warming, he says a massive investment program would still be better than doing nothing. His role model is FDR, who put America on war footing with astounding speed after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The tycoon and those he hobnobs with have so much money that they could be forgiven for being unaware that America is broke. Sure, there's plenty of 'wealth' tied up in stocks, bonds and real estate. But valuations are so pumped with hot air that we might as well write off three-quarters of it, since it will vanish anyway in the next bear market. Plunging share prices will bring many painful epiphanies, including the realization that every dime of the nearly $30 trillion owed by the U.S. Government-- which is to say, owed by taxpayers -- will have to be repaid: if not by borrowers, then by lenders. That is the inexorable logic of deflation, and when it comes we will be too busy dealing with the implosion of Social Security, Medicare and Baby Boomer retirement plans to be gung-ho about taming the weather, were this even possible. Democrats to the Rescue! By then, Americans won't feel much like spending tens of trillions of dollars for coal-plant scrubbers, thorium reactors, Wyoming-sized solar arrays and recapturing methane at wellheads. Galloping to the rescue, Democrats will propose a new tax on gasoline to jump-start 'Build Back Weather'. But the sums required just to get to the first stage of this guaranteed boondoggle would dwarf whatever could be raised with a surcharge of even $10 a gallon, not that anyone would still be
