Rick Ackerman

GDXJ spent the week in an unpersuasive bounce from a voodoo number touched the previous week. An outside day on Wednesday that closed near the intraday low added to a mildly troubling picture, one that portends minimum downside over the near term to at least p=33.35 (see inset chart). Any slippage beneath that Hidden Pivot would of course open a path down to as low as 31.52. If we do any bottom-fishing, it should be at either p or p2=32.44.

We should probably expect crude quotes to reverse upward whenever pump prices slip below $3, since that would be just a little too peachy for the approximately 233 people who drive in the U.S. We can only hope the 78.86 Hidden Pivot target shown contains crude's current surge, since a breakout above that number wants reasons to explore a void on the chart that extends all the way up to $85/barrel. At the level, pump prices will be pushing $4/gallon, so let's cross our fingers and hope Houthis and the Blow-upfish don't up their game in the Persian Gulf. .

[This week's commentary was written by David Isham, a longtime Rick's Picks subscribers from Northern California who has been investing in bullion since he was in grade school four decades ago. RA ] Although gold appears to have broken out of a triple top and recently hit fresh all-time highs at $2152, the gold miners are trading at the same prices they were 20 years ago. I believe this strange disconnect is going to change this year, since gold is finally starting to outperform the CRB commodities index, oil in particular. Because energy makes up 60% of a mining company's costs, this implies the miners are about to become more profitable. Every bull or bear market has three phases -- accumulation, manipulation and distribution. We are in the accumulation phase now, where smart money is accumulating gold mining shares for the coming, multiyear bull market. Next will come the manipulation phase, also known as 'The Judas Swing'.  Aptly named for Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, in the stock-market world it is defined as a false move preceding a real move in the opposite direction. Telltale Sign One of the telltale signs that the miners have embarked on a new bull market will be a show of relative strength if the price of physical gold drops significantly in the months ahead. If mining stocks don't fall as much percentage-wise, gold investors should take encouragement, since the rise that follows will mark the likely resumption of the long-term bull market begun nearly two decades ago.  Finally, there will be a distribution phase where miners go parabolic and the public jumps in belatedly, buying stocks at or near the top. No one can say for sure how deeply gold will correct before it turns to embark on a spectacular run-up, but I wouldn't be

Judging from the ease with which buyers pushed through the midpoint resistance at 4558, the futures are headed to at least 4950.00, the Hidden Pivot rally target shown in the chart.  The pattern is too obvious to be of much use for getting short with pinpoint accuracy , but it will probably do for government work. It lies 5.3% above these levels, compared to a very important target in MSFT that is 8% above. Those two numbers could synch up nicely if the tech stock's ascent continues to outpace the S&Ps.

Just a small push this week will bring AAPL up to the green line, where it would become a promising 'mechanical' short. I would expect a profitable pullback to at least the next level, p=187.47, but I doubt the stock is ready to fall into the abyss. To remind you: The green line (x=193.54) is not a support, resistance, Hidden Pivot or target, just a place at or near which we sometimes initiate trades.  We'll look for an opportunity to do so with a risk-averse 'camouflage' set-up when the stock reaches the line, presumably on Monday if Friday's nutty wilding spree continues.

The dollar made yawn-worthy headway last week with a one-day leap for who-knows-what-reason. The single prior peak the move surpassed on the daily chart was an 'internal' rather than the 'external' we require to signal a true impulse leg. The first such 'external' lies at 104.26, and it can serve as our minimum requirement for signaling a move capable of rejuvenating the long-term bull begun in 2011. Even then the rally would be suspect, for it would still fall well shy of the  107.99 'external' high from November 2022 where a bull run crapped out last October. Our skepticism and a high bar are warranted, since the dollar must weather a Treasury auction calendar for 2024 that will require $8.5 trillion of borrowing to finance rollovers and U.S. budget outlays. Please see my current commentary for additional notes on this.

Gold has relapsed to the green line twice since triggering what had looked like a fine mechanical buying opportunity shortly before Christmas. It has done little since but tease, vex and antagonize, but if past is precedent, the tedium will be broken soon by a big rally to the 2184.80 target shown. That's no assurance that buying now, at levels beneath where we might have been long anyway, will produce a better trade. Since the futures remain in theory a good bet to rally back up to p=2086.40, we'll continue to look for ways to get aboard with risk tightly controlled. The entry risk for the 'textbook' 'mechanical' buy was $20k on four contracts.

Although Feb Gold had the decency to leave us with a little hope, Silver is not being so kind. Its clean destruction of the midpoint pivot (p=22.868) leaves little room for doubt about whether the weakness of the last month will continue on down to the 22.01 target shown. In the meantime, we should plan to get short on a blip to the green line (x=23.295), since the 'mechanical' aspects of the trade look promising. The pattern may also be gnarly enough to use D=22.015 for bottom-fishing.

TLT feathered down to the 93.23 midpoint support of the pattern shown, but the low created by the small bounce so far from this Hidden Pivot will need to be tested before we can infer the bull trend begun in October remains healthy. The corrective move could come all the way down to D=85.89 without damaging the recovery. However, the presumptive power of the next rally leg will be greater if the correction from December's 100.57 peak goes no lower than p=93.23. This is the case so far, since last week's low occurred at 93.26.