Rick Ackerman

Crude's tortuous rally since mid-December projects to 82.46, based on the ABCD pattern shown. It is good enough for government work, but as you can see, the point 'B' high failed to push above late January's 79.09 high. This 'sausage-y' formation has been remedied by using a one-off 'A' low, although the result is a pattern that falls short of ideal. What makes it usable and even trustworthy is the pullback to the green line precisely from the midpoint Hidden Pivot (p=78.99). Now, a pullback to the red line can be bought 'mechanically' with a stop loss at 77.83. _______ UPDATE (Mar 9): Although the 82.46 rally target remains viable, the pattern's C-D leg has grown too tired to offer a good opportunity for bottom-fishing with a 'mechanical' bid at the green line. 

Friday's surge will face a test of resistance at 2106.80, the 'd' target of the reverse pattern shown. If the futures go just a little higher, exceeding the 'external' peak at 2118.00 recorded on December 28, that would generate a strong impulse leg and open up a path to as high as 2204.00.  The 'p' resistance associated with that target lies at 2105.80, meaning there are multiple 'hidden' impediments nearby that are going to put bulls' mettle to the test. A clean blast through all of these HPs will signal the tone change we've awaited since December. _______ UPDATE (Feb 5, 10:32 a.m.): As implied above, yesterday's blast through a tight cluster of 'hidden' resistances has put the futures on course for a run-up to at least 2204.00.  Here's another target, never broached here before: 2307.00.  It is derived from A=1861.70 on 10/6, and tied to p=2151.70, where a stall could occur. ______ UPDATE (Feb 5, 6:20 p.m.): The steep rally begun last Friday did in fact stall almost precisely at the 2150.70 Hidden Pivot identified in my last update. The pullback has been shallow so far, with no impact on the likelihood of D being reached.  ______ UPDATE (Mar 6, 5:20 p.m.): The little poke through p=2151.70 may not look like much, but it is quite bullish for two reasons: 1) at that price, there is double resistance from two p midpoints of different degree; and, 2) the futures have closed above the resistance on the first bar in which they encountered the resistance. If the futures close above 2151.70 for a second consecutive day, that would shorten the odds of a further run-up to 2307.00 to no worse than an even bet. 

Silver badly lagged gold on Friday, but I've given it the benefit of the doubt nonetheless with a bullish rABC pattern that can be used to trade the May contract. Minimum upside is to p=24.28, with a D target at 26.32. The pattern is gnarly enough to be used for positioning a 'mechanical' bid on any one-level pullback. As always, a decisive thrust past p would imply the target is likely to be reached. ______ UPDATE (Mar 5, 6:30 p.m.): Silver continues to lag gold, but not badly enough to worry about. Today's strong start exceeded the D target of a minor pattern but still fell short of p=24.76 of this pattern and an 'external peak at 24.56 from January 2. Look for the correction to come down to 23.16 and reverse if it exceeds 23.80.

Although my immediate outlook for gold futures is bullish, Friday's thrust in this vehicle looks like a fake. It would have gotten more boost if it had occurred from just beneath October's 30.46 bottom, and that is where I expect DaBoyz eventually to engineer an authentic turnaround. More immediately, GDXJ would become an appealing 'mechanical' short at either the red or green line. We'll pass up the opportunity but use these benchmarks nevertheless to gauge trend strength. _______ UPDATE (Mar 5, 6:35 p.m.): The bullish reversal from last Wednesday's low turned decisive with today's pop through an 'external peak at 35.25 recorded more than a month ago. It is still more bullish because the low failed to come down to p2=30.68.

T-Bonds have been on a theoretical buy signal since February 23, when this vehicle popped through the green line (x-93.40).  The minimum upside objective is p=94.80, but we'll be more interested to see how buyers interact with that 'hidden' resistance than in trading GDXJ. A quick and decisive push past it would provide a tailwind for a move to as high as 97.58 over the next several weeks. _______ UPDATE (Mar 9): Last Tuesday's gap through p=94.80 all but guarantees the rally will reach a minimum 97.58, the 'D' target of this pattern. An easy move through that Hidden Pivot resistance would imply that the bull cycle begun from 82.42 last October is about to surge anew.

The Dollar Index has been on a buy signal since January, with potential over the next several months to D=108.38. A fall to the green line (x=102.56) would be widely interpreted as bearish, but as the chart makes clear, the move would be corrective and set up an attractive 'mechanical' buying signal.  The struggle at the red line (p=104.50) suggests the dollar is in no hurry to reach D, with the possibility that it will not reach it at all, or at least not for a long time.

The endgame inched closer to singularity last week with rigged rallies in stocks that had rightfully been given up for dead.  There was the more than doubling in the price of Beyond Meat, for example.  Until last week, shares of the veggie-burger upstart seemed content to scuddle sideways on a tortuous path to death. At $7 a share, the stock had lost 97% of its value since peaking at $240 after its 2019 debut  When it was apexing, Wall Street incited the usual wack-jobs into believing that meatless burgers were the food of the future. Cattle ranchers parried this nonsense with a campaign that emphasized why real meat was better for you. They needn't have worried, however, since most people had already discovered that real meat also tastes a lot better. Carvana is another stock to have received premature last rites from Rick's Picks. Consumer complaints about the used car dealer had been piling up mountainously, like grievances against the airlines, causing the stock to pancake from $376 to under $4.  Its clever handlers managed to waft it back up to $40, which eventually became a launching pad for an undeserved pop last week to $80. Watch for freaked-out shorts to continue covering their bad bets in the weeks ahead, giving the stock an artificial boost before it finds well-deserved obscurity in the low teens during the next recession. Two Kinds of Sardines Even so, if Carvana had just one Pontiac Aztek or an AMC Gremlin sitting on a lot, the company's intrinsic value would exceed that of the world's entire supply of bitcoin. This inconvenient fact seems not to have deterred speculators from bidding up BTC to $64,000 last week, where it sat poised to take on the all-time high at $70,000 recorded in November 2021.  We expect the

I'd expected a modest pop to the 24.08 target of a reverse pattern to start the week. Instead, March Silver stumbled as it emerged from the gate, disappointing bulls yet again and providing yet more evidence that the bull market from hell is on its own time. My hunch is that the target will be achieved, but only after the futures have come down to the 22.385 target of the small rABC pattern shown. This calls for bottom-fishing with a 'camouflage' trigger, meaning an abcd pattern of small degree (the 15-minute chart should do).

The futures rallied last week to within a hair of the 5128.50 Hidden Pivot target sent out to you last Sunday.  The forecast came with an explicit, high-confidence recommendation to get long if the uptrend pulled back to the green line (x=4984.50). This it did on Tuesday, subsequently producing a profit of as much as $7,200 per contract for anyone who did the trade.  I followed up on Friday afternoon with a suggestion to buy SPY 1 March 498 puts. (See my chat room link to the gnarly chart that informed this decision. ) Most subscribers were able to buy them within a penny of their intraday low, 0.37, so we'll have a horse in the race when index futures resume trading on Sunday.