Rick Ackerman

The pocket of supply into which AAPL climbed last week could pose a challenge, since the stock's rise since October has not shown quite the power of Microsoft's. I offered a possible explanation for this in a previous tout: The coming recession will hit iPhone sales much harder than Microsoft's software services. In any event, you can use the 193.36 target of the pattern shown to project a minimum upside target for the coming week. Because everyone is bullish and expects this, watch for the move to occur in such a way that it is untradable -- on a Sunday night gap, perhaps.

December crude's month-long fall did sufficient damage to the longer-term charts to require a rally above $83 to undo it.  However, we'll focus on the short-term picture to determine whether the bounce last Thursday from 72.16 is likely to show staying power. Steep as it was, it still fell a tad shy of the 76.62 target of the modest reverse pattern shown. Achieving it would still leave the futures two cents shy of generating an impulse leg with a leap above the external peak at 78.63 made last week on the way down. We'll delay judgment until we've seen how buyers handle both resistances.

Lacy Hunt, a gray eminence of the financial world and no doomsayer, was out with a Hoisington Report recently that should scare the pants off anyone concerned about the direction of the U.S. economy.  His meticulously detailed take on a commercial real estate debacle that has been metastasizing for more than a year should dispel any notion that Americans will be spared from deepest recession. And yet, judging from the stock market's nearly vertical rise since early October, one might infer that things are going gangbusters. Microsoft shares alone added about $587 billion to the so-called wealth effect. To put that in perspective, it would buy a Mercedes-Benz GLC for every man, woman and child in L.A., Chicago, Houston and Phoenix. If you were to spread the lucre more charitably, it would house every homeless person in America -- luxuriously and for a long time. With an estimated 582,000 street people on the receiving end, each would have a tad more than a million dollars to spend. And it's not as though MSFT is the only high-flier caught up in the market's ballistic rise. The shares of Amazon, Google, Meta, Apple and some others in the trillionaire club rose almost as steeply, adding enough play-dough to the wealth effect to make ALL of us rich -- or at least rich enough in theory that no self-respecting American should ever again have to fly on Spirit Air. Stuffed Camel Entrée So where are the customers' yachts? Unfortunately, precious little of the wealth-effect 'money' will ever trickle down to Levittown, much less to the nation's ramshackle tent cities. Even the rich will hoard most of it once they've covered their essentials -- i.e., chartering floating mansions for summer cruises on the Mediterranean, and throwing garden parties with stuffed camel as the main

Another vertical short-squeeze with nary a bullish buyer in sight! This is Yankee know-how in its terminal stage. Friday's wilding spree pushed the futures forcibly through the 4398 midpoint resistance shown in the chart, shortening the odds of a further move to D=4673.50. The point 'B' high of the bullish pattern is pretty sausage-y, and so we shouldn't expect the presumptive stopping power of the Hidden Pivot target to work precisely. However, the easy move past p should be viewed as a reliable sign the target will be reached. A pullback to the green line (x=4260) can be used to get long 'mechanically', although the initial risk of $5,600 on four contracts will require the use of a 'camouflage' trigger capable of cutting that by perhaps 90%.

AAPL was rising steeply as the week ended, but I've gone out on a limb with a chart that dwells on bearish possibilities just ahead. Unlike MSFT, whose vertical rally left it at new record-highs, AAPL would need to push past two daunting 'external' peaks to get there. AAPL's closing high also equaled a voodoo number that would make a logical spot for a correction to start. It would trigger a short at 182.23, assuming the stock does not take out last week's 186.40 high first. Thereupon, p=178.07 would be our minimum downside objective, where half of any shorts, including with options, would be covered. _______ UPDATE (Nov 14, 7:57 p.m.): A new high at 188.11 has raised the trigger on the short to 183.94, with half to be covered at p=179.78.

Sellers took out the midpoint Hidden Pivot support at 1947.00 with such ease the more downside to at least p2=1910.70 seems unavoidable. Thereafter, continued weakness to as low as D=1874.30 would become likely if p2 is decisively penetrated. For all its disappointments, we need to keep reminding ourselves that gold is in a bull market and that it will turn $2,000 into support only when its handlers -- mainly sovereign banks in concert with bullion bankers -- decide it's time to let 'er rip. The former will continue to accumulate gold in the meantime, and so should we. Stay tuned to the chat room and keep your 'Notifications' switched on if you want guidance in real time. _______ UPDATE (Nov 14, 8:03 p.m.): If the rally hits the green line (X=1983.40), it would trip a 'mechanical' short. Paper trade this one just to keep score unless you know how to set up a 'camouflage' trigger 

More slippage to at least D=22.04 looks unavoidable, given the way sellers obliterated the midpoint support (p) early Friday morning. This Hidden Pivot lies close enough to a cluster of obvious lows recorded in mid-October near 21. They look incapable of arresting silver's fall for long, implying a further fall to October lows near 21 in search of traction. There's a Hidden Pivot support at 21.69 you can use for purposes of precise bottom-fishing (daily, A-23.24 on 10/20). _______ UPDATE Nov 14, 8:07 p.m.): The futures trampolined higher after briefly dipping below the 22.04 Hidden Pivot noted above. Now, if they can shove past p=23.44 of this pattern, they should be presumed bound for D=24.95.

The clock ran out on GDXJ when it was in the throes of a snapback rally following a dip beneath two 'internal' lows recorded around Halloween. The day ended in a 'discomfort zone' bounded by the lows and another at 32.05 from October 12.  That makes it tradeable, but not by way of easy instructions that I could proffer a day in advance. However, if you're proficient at fashioning reverse triggers, you can try a 37-cent trigger interval from any low that falls in the range 32.15-32.44. _______ UPDATE (Nov 14, 8:15 p.m.): GDXJ blasted off with a gap opening, denying us, and nearly everyone else, a chance to get long. That could give the rally a little staying power, although I doubt it will get very far due to the two previous failures to poke above mid-September's 36.14 high.

Each new thrust has been impulsive, surpassing two prior peaks as required by our rules. This is a reliable sign that the bull move begun from 82.42 three weeks ago is healthy and not losing strength. The next leg up will be more challenging, however, since the nearest peak needing to be surpassed lies well above, at 96.54. Buyers will be well fortified for the task, however, given their demonstrated ability to handle lesser peaks with ease. ______ UPDATE (Nov 24): No sooner do I tout the bullishness of TLT's easy move through prior peaks than it narrowly fails to exceed a small but daunting one at 91.61 recorded on September 22. This is not necessarily the death knell for the impressive bull move from October 23's 82.77 low, but the apparent change of heart warrants close monitoring. The selling would need to hit 86,73 to generate a bearish impulse leg of daily-chart degree, probably killing the nascent bull. _______ UPDATE (Nov 28, 4:54): The small but technically significant 'look-to-the-left' peak at 91.61 shown in this chart is crucial to the intermediate-term picture. TLT looks ready to hurdle it, which would imply more upside over the next several weeks to as high as the 97.05 peak recorded in late August