Rick Ackerman

Is there a tokenized investment in your future? With so many white elephants to unload, Wall Street's rep could come calling on you at any time. He will offer you a virtual piece of America's future, claiming it will grow wealth for your children and grandchildren. However, when you sit down with this cheery fellow to go over the fine print, just remember that his brain is nearly identical genetically to that of the seagull that swoops down on your lunch at a seaside café. And exactly which piece of the rock will your hard-earned dollars secure? Almost certainly, the pitch will feature commercial real estate or AI infrastructure. The latter will include not only huge power plants and water coolers, along with acres of computers, but all the hot air exhausted by a Billionaire Boy's Club that has been hustling some of the most ambitious projects the galaxy has ever seen. Hot Air for Sale Obsolete skyscrapers and AI's overhyped revenue potential are the chief sources of anxiety in banksters' portfolios these days, with notional sums at risk of perhaps $20 trillion or more, and growing. All of it has been financed to colossal excess by banks that have grown understandably eager to spread the risk onto rubes like you and me. Voila, the tokenized investment! That's why tokens were invented: to divvy up epic chunks of glitz into a million pieces small enough for the little guy to get in on the action. He needn't worry about being shut out, since the deals just keep coming. So greedy and stupid are the lenders that they are still hatching galactically large projects even as warning signs flash red. Oracle's partnership with OpenAI, for instance. This gambit is slated to launch in 2027 at a value of $500 billion. The

The 7208.75 rally target has excellent potential as a place to get short, although we shouldn't expect it to contain the stampede. With a conceivably perpetual cease-fire in the offing, this would seem to be the kind of uncertainty Wall Street can live with. Trump might wind up achieving none of his key objectives in the war, but that hardly matters to investors stoked by greed from the stock market's robust performance amid an ostensible global crisis. The nearest significant obstacle is a midpoint Hidden Pivot at 7230.25, but if the futures shred it, the previously mentioned 8107.25 target will be in play.

Rates on the Ten Year have receded from a high-water mark two weeks ago of 4.48%, a threshold that came close to throttling mortgage activity with a move above 7%, as well as all other forms of debt financing. It's difficult to predict at the moment how much more relief borrowers will get, but T-Notes seem likely to fall to at least 4.18% from a current 4.32%. If they touch that Hidden Pivot, any bounce would presumably be merely corrective, since it would follow the creation of a bearish impulse leg via a penetration of March 17's important, 41.89 low. ______ UPDATE (April 24): Last week's steep ascent created a fresh impulse leg on the daily chart. The 4.18% downside target has receded, but it remains theoretically viable. We'll need to monitor two Hidden Pivot levels closely to see whether bulls are about to resume their advance. They lie at 42.91 and 42.50, the respective midpoint and secondary supports of a downtrending rABC begun from March 13's 43.51 high. If interest rates are about to rise anew, watch for this vehicle to bounce from 42.91 and continue higher.

I am treating Friday's low at 80.56 as potentially important, since the pattern from which it is derived took more than five weeks to play out. Only two coordinates are shown for proprietary reasons, but the other two are easy enough to identify if you care. Notice that the low missed the actual target by 85 cents. I suspect this was due to front-running, which if true would mean the clowns and algos have gotten better at playing our game. That's okay, though, since we can keep a step ahead of them simply by using reverse-pattern triggers as detailed in the Hidden Pivot Course. Most immediately, expect more upside to at least 89.04, a minor 'd' target.  If it is easily exceeded, especially on first contact, that would suggest the recent low is likely to hold for a while and that quotes are headed back toward $100/barrel or higher.

The 7230.25 midpoint resistance shown is my minimum upside objective for the near term. It will pose a crucial test for bulls, since a decisive penetration, especially on first contact, would imply that the rally is likely to continue. The immediate objective thereupon would be p2=7668.75, but as always, a swift move through it would clear a path to as high as 8107.25, the D target.  The 7230.25 pivot is a must-short, provided you're adept at using 'camo' triggers to curtail entry risk. The technique is described in the Hidden Pivot Course I've made available for free to all old subscribers and to new ones who have signed up for a full year.

Try as they might, the slimeballs charged with goosing this cinder block whenever it needs a cash-free boost have succeeded only in recouping about a third of bear-market losses sustained since last autumn's top near 550.  To be sure, the rigged, gap-up openings that accounted for nearly all of last week's 60-point (15%) gain generated a powerful impulse leg on the daily chart, and it must be respected. But we'll make bulls earn our trust every step of the way, and that means with a leap either Monday or Tuesday that surpasses the gap resistance at 442.50 created in January on the way down. I will continue to track the stock closely, since, despite its ugly slide over the last six months, the company remains the most reliable bellwether for gauging the health of the stock market.

Although the 5144.00 rally target shown remains a secure minimum upside objective, waiting for it to be achieved has been agonizing. That's because, as we know, gold's institutional sponsors could wipe out ten weeks' worth of ratcheting, tedious gains with just one of those sleazy hit-jobs to which we'd grown accustomed during the bull market's incipient stage. If the swoon comes next week, I would not recommend bottom-fishing with a 'mechanical' bid at the green line, since the trade has an elevated probability of getting stopped out. This opportunity, if it comes, will be via a 'green-line' buy only, assuming the futures get socked with a bout of weakness by those most intent on adding to their hoard at fire-sale prices. That's how the game works.

Silver has made better headway than Gold toward the nearest important rally objective, in this case 93.850. However, the move has still been a drain on our patience and more than a little stressful since, like gold, the futures will always be subject to one of those nasty downdrafts that inflicts all bull markets during lengthy consolidations. The mildly good news from last week is that buyers popped this vehicle through an 'external' peak at 82.760 recorded in mid-March on the way down. The move was impulsive and implies that the next leg higher will achieve the secondary Hidden Pivot (p2) at 85.690.

You can hardly blame Trump for playing up the stock market's spectacular performance whenever anyone challenges the way he is conducting the war, or claims the jihadists are winning. Even in the editorial rooms of the New York Times and Bloomberg, where a virulent strain of Trump Derangement Syndrome still lingers, news editors are finding their caustic opinions overwhelmed by the bullish tide -- make that, tsunami -- on Wall Street. Although details of a cease-fire have yet to be worked out, never mind the terms of a peace agreement, stocks have exploded into their steepest rally ever, recouping five months' worth of steady losses in just 17 days, while racking up gains during that period equal to the amazing, six-month bull run-up of 2025. Can tens of millions of investors be wrong? Or is genuine peace about to break out, as Trump would put it, like nothing the world has ever seen before? To answer that question, harken back to an iconic graffito from the 1970s: "Eat Shit! Can a hundred trillion flies be wrong?" If you fail to see the connection, let me spell it out: A superheated stock market is the last place everyone should look for evidence that all is right with the world. Moreover, Trump's eagerness to direct our attention that way makes it even more foolhardy. Bipolarity's Sweet Spot Why? Because the stock market is a rabid beast whose mood swings have always ranged between reckless exuberance and suicidal despair. Within the broad middle of this bipolarity, it acts like a giant carnival midway, hyped by barkers who use 'research' to support extremes of overvaluation that currently make the South Sea Bubble of the 1700s look like a shingles-and-siding hustle. Moreover, the rally's aberrant strength suggests it is driven mainly by a short-covering panic