Rick Ackerman

It may seem churlish for me to point this out, but the apex of last week's rally did not quite achieve the 4836.50 target shown in the chart. It fell 5.75 points shy -- enough in the context of so subtly perfect a pattern to temporarily cast doubt on the bullish enterprise, such as it is. A fist-pump through the target on Tuesday or Wednesday would put bulls back on track with more short-covering, the sustaining force behind a run-up begun in October that long ago exceeded the threshold of sanity. Assuming stocks head lower when trading resumes after Christmas, expect the March contract to fall to at least 4778.50, and thence to 4735.25 if any lower. You can bottom-fish at the latter number provided you know how to chisel the risk down to relative pocket change with a 'camouflage' trigger. The numbers are, respectively, the p and Hidden Pivots of the small reverse pattern shown here. It worked nicely on Friday, producing a gain of as much as $5,000 on four contracts for any subscriber who shorted at 4811.50 on the way down as I explicitly advised in the chat room.

[The following was written by my good friend James Trabulse.  A devout Catholic, Jim regularly attends a Latin mass. He is also a gifted trader who brings rigorous science and outside-the-box thinking to nearly everything he does, including playing golf, staying healthy, cooking savory, nutritious meals and training Olympic-caliber athletes. RA ] Merry Christmas, and may the Lord's blessings be on your house. When we first said 'Merry Christmas!' in A.D. Zero, the baby slumbered in an animal-feeder in Bethlehem, 90 miles south of Nazareth -- hardly a pleasant affair, with no one there save Mary and Joseph. As we sing in the Roman Rite at the Intrit: Puer natus est pro nobis, is this the fulfillment of Isiah when he prophesied: For a child has been born to us, a son given to us, and the authority is upon his shoulder, and the wondrous adviser, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, called his name, 'the prince of peace.'  We said 'Merry Christmas!', to the derision of the Romans for 254 years. They outlawed us, put us in with hungry lions in the great Colosseum, along with a cheering crowd and Caesar’s thumbs turned down. Taming the Visigoths And when we said 'Merry Christmas!' to bring the good news to the Goths and Visigoths, they burned us and ran us through. Five-hundred years later, they were saying 'Merry Christmas!' in German, one of their own being Saint Nicolas! And 'Merry Christmas!' in Tunis and Algiers was met with the Star and Crescent and beheadings; but we said 'Merry Christmas! The Child of eternal hope is here!' And then, 'Merry Christmas!' in Ye Olde England under the Puritans was met with hangings, exile and nothing merry at all; but we continued the greeting long after Elizabeth and Cromwell were dead and

This should be interesting, since the Dollar Index has triggered an appealing 'mechanical' buy with its return to the green line earlier this month. A stop-loss at 99.59 would apply, although we won't be trading on the signal.  A sustained rally would end the stock-market rally begun in October, since there is nothing that Wall Street, the banksters and everyone who owes money should fear more than a resurgent dollar. My hunch is that the rally would need to reach p2=109.66 or so before still-dim perceptions of the threat would sharpen. The first to feel the pain would be the growing hoard of motorists whose cars, including a few Bentleys, are slated for repossession. I'm looking for this debtor epiphany to occur simultaneously with MSFT's fall from a 430.58 bull-market target billboarded here earlier.

The short squeeze turned savage last week with a thrust that surpassed not only a 'secondary pivot' of daily-chart degree at 4754, but July's watershed peak at 4738 as well.  This show of bravado all but locked up more upside to at least 4950.00, the Hidden Pivot target of a bull cycle begun nine months ago. The flurry of crazed buying went into overdrive on Wednesday, spurred by a flash of 'pivot' porn from Jerome Powell that was subsequently retracted, sort of.  With the S&Ps in a blowoff, we should expect them to reach the target in less time than the month it took to get from p to p2. _______ UPDATE (Dec 20, 11:57 p.m.): When stocks plunge inexplicably as they did this afternoon, it's tempting to think they are at long last starting to respond rationally to troublesome developments in the real world. Not necessarily. Although the herd may in fact be infected with fatal spores of madness, I am sticking with my ambitious rally target at 4950.00. My confidence is based on the way buyers easily conquered the daunting midpoint resistance at 4559.00 shown in the chart. 

It wasn't long ago that we were reading about a menacing slowdown of iPhone sales in China, but the news evidently has been forgotten with the stock's push into new record territory. It has trailed Microsoft for a few good reasons but now appears eager to make up for lost time. Most immediately, that would portend a run-up over the very near term to 204.01, the Hidden Pivot target of the eye-jarring pattern shown in the chart. If bears push past it easily with feverish short-covering in the days ahead, it would bring into play a 253.96 target derived from a lower 'A' at 53.15 recorded in March 2020.

Feb Gold has been the unwitting slave of  the bullish pattern show, with a 2250.00 target that has been in play since mid-October. The bounce off last week's low was encouraging, since the futures managed to finish the week with a gain that left it comfortably above the midpoint of the weekly range. Nasty takedowns are still possible, but $2000 may have become a floor beneath which bulls would swarm thin, insincere offers. _______ UPDATE (Dec 19, 1:47 p.m.): I said in the chat room that Feb Gold would hit 2086, but Martin Armstrong's cautionary cited in the chat room has reminded me that I should wait for that to happen instead of pretending I have a crystal ball that says it will. The chart is mildly encouraging because the recent high at 2152 impulsively exceeded May's 2140 peak. That means the subsequent plunge to 1987 was/is corrective. But there are no guarantees that the theoretical buy signal at x=2037 will get the futures to p=2086.4. I do hope this happens, however, since price action at p can tell us a lot about the health and sincerity of the uptrend since October. In theory, the bullish impulsiveness of the weekly chart could survive a plunge all the way down to 1845, even if few bulls would be left standing to cheer it.

Silver has pulled out of a steep dive that retraced more than 80% of the rally begun in mid-November from 22.26. We are likely to know soon whether the reversal is capable of achieving the 26.865 target shown, since a crucial resistance lies just above in the form of a Hidden Pivot midpoint resistance at 24.82, As always, an easy penetration of this obstacle, or better yet two consecutively weekly closes above it, would suggest bulls are back in charge.  This seems very likely because the impulse leg that drove the futures to their most recent high at 26.34 surpassed two 'external' peaks and one 'internal' without taking a breather.

Although touts for bullion vehicles listed just above are bullish, GDXJ's weekly chart gives us reason for caution.  Notice how the recent high at 39.47 failed to surpass the 'external' peak at 39.70 recorded in July. This display of timidity, which narrowly failed to generate a fresh impulse leg, is not necessarily the kiss of death, but neither is it very encouraging. It would be remedied by a robust blast above 39.47 this week, but until such time as that happens, I'll keep the yellow flag unfurled. Am unqualified success would portend more upside to 41.81.

Although the rally from the October low at 82.74 has seemed impressive, it has yet to surpass any significant obstacles. The first test lies just above in the form of a Hidden Pivot resistance at 100.57, the 'D' target of a clear and compelling reverse pattern.  If buyers are able to get past it, the next significant challenge would be at the pattern's 'B high at 109.68; and thence at 120.69, an imposing peak from early August. The decisiveness of any move above these benchmarks would be a factor in determining the rally's staying power. _____ UPDATE (Jan 5); The puts that subscribers bought for 0.19 traded for ten times that today on hard selling that drew only a brief, contrarian respite in the first hour. TLT finished just off the low of the day and could continue falling to the 95.26 target shown in this chart before it gets a foothold.