Rick Ackerman

There are numerous conflicting currents acting on AAPL at the moment, but I've settled on a corrective pattern on the daily chart that seems clear enough to rely on in the days ahead. A bounce precisely from p=191.37 would help us get oriented, but any decisive breach of this support either intraday or on a closing basis would portend more slippage to as low as D=188.07.  We'll be entering a new year, an event that should have no particular impact on stocks but which often has ignited powerful rallies. In any case, the pattern shown should be easily tradable in all the usual ways, since it began with a 'textbook' impulse leg. _______ UPDATE (Jan 2, 12:15 p.m.): This morning's take-no-prisoners opening shredded every minor 'D' target/support on the hourly chart, generating an impulse leg in the process. This implies that any rally that falls short last year's high at 200 is setting up another leg down.

We used a rally target from the weekly chart to buy put options last Wednesday for 0.19, just pennies off their all-time low. By week's end they had traded for as much as 0.43, giving subscribers an opportunity to cash out of half of them for at least twice what they'd paid. This effectively lowered their cost basis to zero, giving everyone a riskless position with a week left on it.  The chart shown is bullish, but if this corrective move picks up steam it could yield a fat gain for everyone. I recommend holding at least a fraction of the original position until Friday afternoon, when the options expire. _______ UPDATE (Jan 2, 6:47 p.m.): The puts traded as high as 0.72 today, nearly four times what we paid for them, so you should be out of at least half of your position. _______ UPDATE (Jan 5): The puts that subscribers bought for 0.19 or less a week ago traded for ten times that today, yielding exceptional profits for anyone who did the trade -- even those who bailed out early. I'd explicitly advised holding a few puts until they expired (see above), a strategy that paid off at jackpot odds when T-Bonds relapsed following an opening-hour short squeeze. Now, the plunge could continue to as low as 95.26 over the near term. Here's a chart that shows the target.

The futures made a little headway toward the 2184.80 target with a marginal penetration of the pattern's midpoint resistance, p=2086.40. The target is slightly higher than the one given earlier, which used a one-off 'A' on the hourly chart. A pullback to the green line (x=2037.10) should be treated as a gift, since it would enable a 'mechanical' buy that looks quite fetching in prospect. The implied 50-point stop-loss would demand the use of a 'camouflage' trigger designed to cut entry risk by at least 90%. I will furnish timely details if possible, so be sure to check your email 'Notifications' if the trade gets close. _____ UPDATE (Jan 5): Sellers pushed the futures down to the green line, triggering a 'mechanical' buy with an unacceptably wide stop-loss at 1987.80. I did not put out a trade because there was no a-b segment clear enough to set up a lower-risk, reverse-pattern entry. We'll spectate for now, but with the goal of jumping in on the long side if the right opportunity comes along. 

Friday's selloff early in the session put Silver a tradable step ahead of Feb Gold, since it triggered a 'mechanical' buy at the green line (x=23.80) that has yet to occur in gold. There are no guarantees that the theoretically profitable bounce that occurred subsequently will keep on going, but the bullish signal would remain viable nonetheless, even if the futures slip beneath 23.80.  The signal offers no assurance of a further move to D=26.86, only the likelihood of a profitable one-level move from x to p.

Although GDXJ has not reached the 41.81 rally target we've been using, I've switched to a moderately negative picture because of the way bulls got sandbagged last week after slightly exceeding a key 'external' peak at 39.70 recorded on July 18.  My expectation is for the pullback down to at least p=35.20, but I'll be looking closely for the first sign of an upturn from above that 'hidden' support (which will be tradable via a 'reverse pattern').  Let's wait and see first whether the downtrend actually trips a theoretical sell signal by falling to the green line, a feat missed on Friday by just 12 cents. _______ UPDATE (Jan 5): Price action has been viciously abusive of bulls, even if swing highs and lows have been more or less predictable. The low of last week's selloff, for instance, came down to within 18 cents of the 35.20 target flagged above, but without generating any appealing bottom-fishing opportunities. We'll back away for now, since GDXJ is going to need more help from bullion futures to get rolling.

Feb Crude came down hard after peaking last week 30 cents above a level where I'd suggested looking for a set-up to get short. There was no discussion of this in the chat room, so I have not established a tracking position. The nasty tumble is good news for motorists, since it implies that $3 gas will be with us for at least a little while longer, Here in Florida, and elsewhere in the U.S. (although surely not in California), there is a chance that the price of premium gas will fall below $3.  Depending on how sellers handle the 70.34 midpoint support, the weakness could continue down to as low as D=64.49.

In these way-too-interesting times, there aren't many publications that would trumpet a New Year's Eve headline like the one above. It topped the front page of the South Florida Sun Sentinel, however, a tribute to the Sunshine State's winning performance on the playing field. Two college basketball teams, University of Miami and Florida American University, made it to the NCAA Final Four, while the Panthers and the Miami Heat did much better than expected in, respectively, professional hockey and professional basketball. Many investors, too, will be hoping for a repeat of 2023. The S&Ps tacked on nearly 1,000 points since the start of the year, and that is bound to have raised their expectations for more of the same in 2024. My own forecast suggests they may be in for disappointment. Although I see the broad averages going at least somewhat higher, a moonshot looks doubtful. That's because shares of Microsoft, currently trading for around $375, look incapable of exceeding a granite 'Hidden Pivot' ceiling at $430 without experiencing a major correction or a bear market first. MSFT has taken AAPL's place as my #1 stock-market bellwether because iPhone sales will be extremely vulnerable in a recession, even as subscription revenues for Microsoft Windows/Outlook continue to roll in no matter what happens to the global economy. MSFT is therefore the single most important stock in the world, and when its long roll of the dice sevens out, that will signal the end of the stock market's near-vertical climb. Bullion Gathering Strength If there is great news coming for investors, look for it to happen in the bullion sector. Silver and gold have spent more than three years consolidating for a push that will turn $2000 into bedrock support for the latter. The move has been such a long time in

The stock has been on a short signal since it fell $4 to 195.57 to a week ago. There is implied minimum downside to p=191.52 for this presumptive correction, but a decisive breach of this Hidden Pivot support would portend more slippage to at least p2=187.46 or even to D=183.41. Since the broad averages will follow the stock whichever way it goes, we'll monitor price action at HP levels closely. AAPL has returned to normalcy, more than keeping pace with MSFT in the face of news that would rattle buyers were they not predominantly heedless psychotics and buy-and-hold chimps who purport to 'manage' portfolios.

Dollar bulls ceded more ground last week, further thwarting Powell's efforts to raise the cost of dollars so that they are no longer effectively free to speculators and money-changers. DXY's moderate slippage left it somewhat shy of wrecking an incipiently bullish pattern via a dip beneath the point 'C' low; however, the direction and rate of decline were hardly encouraging. The dollar remains on a 'mechanical' buy signal in theory, but the strategy no longer looks likely to produce a winner.  If the plunge takes out C=99.59, we should brace for more slippage into the mid 90s.