The downtrend's so-far failure to reach the 64.80 target could be a sign of incipient strength or even the start of a reversal of the mini-bear market that has cut oil's price by 23% since it topped in September at 88.21 a barrel. Regardless, the February contract would become a fetching 'mechanical' short at the green line (x=75.88), stop 79.58. If there's an expression of interest in the chat room at the appropriate time, I'll provide guidance for doing so with a 'camouflage' trigger.
Most of us had been expecting gold to explode through the $2000 "barrier" and soar into the wild blue yonder. Instead, it spasmed to $2152 for a nanosecond on December 4, then crashed back down below $2000 like an anvil dropped into an elevator shaft. What happened? Gold is most certainly in a bull market, even if the ascent has been tortuous. One might think bull-market psychology would limit the extent to which bullion's price can be manipulated, especially lower. And it has, evidently, judging from the way the last takedown attempt reversed without even getting close to a prior low at 1955. This is despite the fact that gold's price is controlled by white-collar criminals who act with the blessings and complicity of regulators and their evil masters in the upper echelons of banking. We suggest that you Google our old friend Andy Maguire if you want to understand exactly how these slimeballs from Wharton, Sloan and Stanford operate. Their mothers actually believe they are respectable businessmen. Use the Trendline So when might we expect gold to get off the launching pad with enough firepower to turn the bad guys' pelotas into roasted chestnuts? It is logical to think this will happen when gold has finished consolidating at the $2000 level. However, because it has spent the last year making a muddle of this idea, I'll suggest using the trendline in the chart above to determine when COMEX futures have broken out for a run-up to at least $2500. That implies a consolidation above $2100 rather than at the ponderously symbolic $2000. A second, decisive poke above $2100 this month or next would hasten the process, especially if the futures can settle above the trendline for two or more consecutive weeks. Bulls can afford to be patient, since anyone
TLT's leap last week, which left two bullish gaps on the daily chart, was less encouraging than it seemed. For an uptrend to remain healthy, it must continually renew itself by surpassing a prior peak with each new upthrust. Although the latest thrust did exceed a cluster of small highs recorded in mid-September, it failed to go the extra inch needed to get past August 31's summit at 97.05. An energetic upward reversal early in the week could rectify this shortcoming, but if TLT simply drifts sideways-to-lower, it would diminish the putative strength of the ascent begun from 82.42 on October 23. I am being finicky to avoid overlooking the possibility that interest rates have merely been correcting, and that Powell plans to let market forces take them above 5%. ______ UPDATE (Dec 13, 10:51 p.m.): DaBoyz on the night shift have succeeded in wafting TLT as high as 97.14, surpassing the Aug 31 high. The move is therefore impulsive and will refresh the bullish energy of the daily chart.
The futures continued their tortuous slog toward the 4634.50 rally target shown, defying a growing chorus of prognosticators who believe, not without good reason, that the stock market is overdue for a rest. It has been moving relentlessly higher since October 30, driven mainly by short-covering and airy, gap-up openings in a handful of Nasdaq stocks, particularly MSFT and AAPL. Any progress above the target given above would indicate more upside to 4687.00 [corrected upward), but the lower number cries out to be shorted. This is notwithstanding its non-public appearance on the Rick's Picks home page. _______ UPDATE (Dec 13, 10:43 p.m.): When criminally manipulated rallies turn silly, as this one has, we are fortunate to have Hidden Pivots to make tradable sense of them. The pattern shown looks too wacky to be reliable for nailing an important top, but the 4804.00 target shown should work nonetheless as a lodestar for bull trades as well as a place to get short using a tight 'reverse pattern'. The pattern in progress should also work nicely for 'mechanical' bids on any one- or two-level pullbacks from no higher than around 4770.
Although AAPL has trailed the meteoric MSFT, the stock could play catch-up with a blast to as high as 219.93, the target shown. It would presumably get there within a day or so of MSFT's achieving a corresponding target at 430.58 that has been drum-rolled here. A breakaway move this week above p=192.8 would be a tell hinting of buying power sufficient to put a worthy finishing stoke on the stock's spectacular rise. Any trades will have to come from the intraday charts, since we are unlikely to be gifted with a pullback sufficient to generate a 'mechanical' buy on a chart of larger degree. _______ UPDATE (Dec 13, 10:58 p.m.): Are these guys good, or what? AAPL's handlers have turned murderous tonight, brazenly pushing the stock into record territory in after-hours trading. There isn't much left to slow it down now.
Friday's dastardly takedown put the February contract on course for a drop to at least 2001.50. If that Hidden Pivot support fails to brake gold's fall, look for more slippage to 1986.90, calculated by shifting the pattern's point 'A' high five bars to the left. The scumballs who manipulate gold have demonstrated that they are capable of pulling out the rug whenever they please. However, given the run-up to a new record high at 2152 just before the sniper's head-shot, it has become more difficult for them to convince us that gold needs to correct much below 2000 while it vamps for a shot at 2200 and higher. _______ UPDATE (Dec 13, 11:03 p.m.): The futures trampolined $65 from within $1 of the 1986.90 bottoming target billboarded above. Everybody happy?
As Silver plummeted on Friday, few subscribers would have been focused on the green line, where the March contract will become an all-but-obligatory 'mechanical' buy. Such trades are not supposed to leave one feeling comfortable, and this one would surely qualify as menacing. Note, however, that the implication is not that the futures will necessarily achieve D=27.16 after touching x=22.67, only that they are more like to bounce to p=24.16 than to fall first below C=21.17. We can manage the risk of this opportunity with a smidgen of 'camouflage if it materializes', so please nudge me in the chat room if you're actively engaged. ______ UPDATE (Dec 13, 11:11 p.m.): No one nudged me, but DaBoyz goosed the March contract $1.34 off a 22.78 low that missed touching my green-line 'launching pad' by 12 cents. Our attention is now on this very tradable pattern, with a 25.47 D target. The slight overshoot of p=24.13 implies that D is no worse than an even bet to be reached.
The 42.09 rally target we've been using looks no less likely to be achieved, notwithstanding last week's punitive selloff from the pink line (p2=39.18). That won't make the prospect of a 'mechanical' buy any less intimidating, however. The first opportunity, which I am not recommending, would be to buy at the red line with a 34.34 stop-loss. It was touched and slightly exceeded on Friday, but we'll wait for a less risky opportunity at x=33.37. Even then, we'll need to create a 'camouflage' trigger to avoid exposing ourselves to nearly $3 of entry risk per share.
If this so-far modest bounce is going to get legs, it should easily penetrate the 71.74 midpoint resistance of the reverse pattern shown by no later than Tuesday. A decisive move past it would make the futures an odds-on bet to achieve D=74.40. As always, an easy move through so clear and compelling a Hidden Pivot would imply that the uptrend is likely to continue. However, the rally will need to get past the pattern's 79.67 peak to suggest that a test of autumn's highs near 88 is coming. _______ UPDATE (Dec 13, 10:18 p.m.): Is this rally the start of an important trend change? If so, it will push past the 71.10 'D' target of this reverse pattern without much effort. Today's thrust was sufficient to trigger a theoretical buy and some profit taking later in the session, but it will take more than that to reverse hard selling that has persisted for the last ten weeks.
[This essay originally appeared here in July 2022 and was written by a friend who spends a lot of time thinking outside the box. His provocative thesis is that that there is a physiological basis for our political differences; moreover, he notes, liberals cancel and ghost their conservative friends for reasons that are tied to their deepest fears about survival as a species. How else to explain why they become so outraged over seemingly little things that they would end a long friendship over them? It happened to me most recently when a Boulder woman I'd known for years visited Florida. We took some long walks on the beach, had a few great dinner conversations and generally enjoyed each other's company. After she returned to Colorado, I asked her in an email whether her news sources, including CNN and MSNBC, ever showed videos of Biden stumbling through a speech or falling off a podium. She insisted that such videos had been doctored by the Republicans; then, a few days later, this otherwise courtly woman admonished me in an email with some informational links to"Read this, you fucking moron!" So much for the strong mutual respect that had always obtained between us over the years. Yet another close friendship had bitten the dust. Please circulate this to anyone who might find it interesting, especially liberal friends who have stopped taking your calls . At the author’s request, I have not identified him. RA ] *** Many of us have noticed that our liberal friends are more likely to 'ghost' us than the other way around. Typically, they terminate our friendships in ways that are meant to be final. Their way of doing so ranges from slipping away to kissing us off with a righteous display of indignation and disgust. Here is
