Current Touts

Bitcoin has drifted as low as 92,000 since topping two weeks ago a micron from a Hidden Pivot target at 107,343 that I'd flagged. The target came with an explicit recommendation to get short there. Now an opportunity is taking shape to bottom-fish the 89,246 target shown, again with as tight a stop-loss as you can craft. The pattern has already delivered a theoretically profitable 'mechanical' short position from the green line (x=97,218), at least half of which would have been covered on the subsequent drop to p=94,561.  The bottom-fishing trade looks pretty juicy to me, so I will not be sharing it with the public or non-paying subscribers. To avoid queering its Hidden Pivot magic, I would ask that you not share it either. BRTI is not a tradable vehicle, so plan on interpolating the target for use with BTCUSD, GBTC, or any other symbol of your choosing.

I've labeled the impulse leg shown in the chart 'promising' because the pattern's point 'B' low crushed an external low the way reliable A-B legs are supposed to. So what does it promise?  Two things of value to us: 1) a profitable 'mechanical' short if the futures should rally to the green line (x=2696.00); and 2) the prospect of bottom-fishing when D=2500.00 -- a logical minimum downside target -- is reached. Because a gaggle of village idiots will be trained on round-number support there, we shouldn't count too heavily on a precisely tradable turn.  There is also a chance of that occurring from the secondary pivot, p2=2565.30. However, bottom-fishing there would need to be done with a 'counterintuitive' (i.e., rABC) trigger. Nudge me in the chat room for guidance in real time if I'm around. _______ UPDATE (Jan 2, 2:18 p.m. EST): I don’t trust today’s rally, but there is no percentage in trying to intercept it. The Feb contract is currently trading at 2668.30 and looks likely to achieve 2722.40. That would still leave it shy of December’s 2761.30 peak, let alone the record 2826.30 recorded on 10/30. One trade to recommend: buy a dip to 2628.10, stop 2596.70. Since that implies $12,000 of risk on four contracts, you would need to fashion a small-pattern trigger (aka ‘camouflage’) to cut the risk by 95% or more.

With the current focus on gold and silver futures calling for moderately bearish outcomes, I've selected a GDXJ chart that shows a potential best-case scenario. It implies that the 47.14 low that ended the week came close to fulfilling a minor d correction target at 46.69. If so, and the gold miners are close to an interim bottom, that would imply bullion prices are also about to turn higher. Regardless, GDXJ can be bottom-fished at 'd' with a reverse-pattern trigger of small degree (i.e., 'camouflage').  Alternatively, if sellers simply shred 'd', expect more downside to at least 44.75 (daily chart, A= 50.57 on 11/7). _______ UPDATE (January 5): Last week's rally failed to generate an impulse leg on the daily chart because its 44.91 apex fell 18 cents shy of surpassing the 45.o8 'external' peak recorded on December 20. This disappointing price action implies that the 40.21 'D' target is still likely to be reached.

The pattern shown has enough quirks that it should work precisely for bottom-fishing at D=28.185. That Hidden Pivot also makes a logical minimum downside target because of the downtrend's decisive penetration of p=30.728 on the way down. That is why the chart is somewhat more bearish than the one I have presented in gold with a 2500.00 target.  As exhilarating and encouraging as a silver rally to x=31.999 might seem at this time, it would actually trigger a 'mechanical' short with potential for tight risk management and good odds for success.

Nothing can prevent more slippage down to at least D=40.21, the Hidden Pivot target of the pattern shown. That will amount to a 27% decline since this symbol topped near 56 in October. The target is unlikely to be usable for conventional bottom-fishing, unfortunately, since it is coincident with a low recorded back in August that is certain to attract the attention of the herd. The pattern is too obvious as well, but it is also sufficiently compelling for us to assume the bear cycle begun in October will not much exceed it. If you plan to bottom-fish, use a 'counterintuitive' trigger with an rABC pattern that comes from the 15-minute chart or lower. The point 'c' low can be planted just above the August low (40.26), equal to it, or slightly below it, since a bounce from within the midst of these levels will be unavoidable.

I've lowered my target for Treasurys so often that it's time to face the music. The 73.69 'D' Hidden Pivot shown in the chart is where this ETF proxy for the long bond is probably going, and it is not a pretty picture. The punditry, editorialists and Bloomberg bozos can blather all they want about the economy's supposedly soft landing, but this is wishful thinking. Interest rates are headed even higher, and this will crush markets that owe their artificial robustness to easy financing; cars and houses, to name just two. It will also turn the irreparable devastation in commercial real estate into a catalyst for the Second Great Depression. The chart pattern is too clear to deny, especially since it has already worked several times to produce profitable 'short' trades on the way down. A second test of p2=85.44 could conceivably turn this cinder block higher, but we shouldn't look for miracles. ______ UPDATE (January 5): TLT continued to hover near death's door, extending its distributive, sideways scuddle for another week. It would need to pop above 88.91, an external peak shown in this chart, to emerge from purgatory. _______ UPDATE (Jan 10): TLT stopped scuddling, the better to plunge anew. It ended the week with an imminent test in prospect of the 82.42 low recorded in October 2023. A two-day close beneath it would all but ordain more progress down to 73.69, a target that would have seemed unimaginable when this symbol spiked to a covid-era peak at 179.70 in March 2020.

Bitcoin has fallen 16204 points, or 15%, since peaking at a record 108,244 last Tuesday. I still have a final bull market target outstanding at 113,343, but the ferocity of last week's plunge has cast doubt on whether it will be achieved any time soon. Friday's low halted just a split-hair shy of generating an impulse leg on the hourly chart, but we can expect that to occur early next week with the penetration of the 92,091 'external' low recorded on December 11.  The short-squeeze bounce that occurred off Friday's engineered, sold-out low at 92,130 was impressive and scary enough to scatter shorts, but it will need to reach 102,760 to become impulsive on the hourly chart.  Alternatively, if BRTI continues to fall, we can try to bottom-fish a voodoo number at 91,142. This vehicle is not tradable, but the voodoo number equivalent in BTCUSD is 91,389. The next beneath it is 88,824, and thence 87,846, my worst-case low for the next 4-7 days.

The chart shows interest rates on the Ten-Year Note rising over the next 8-12 months to 5.5% from a current 4.5%.  This will devastate the economy and lay bare the delusion that America's economy is booming. The 5.5% figure is deceptive, because, presumably, it will be achieved with asset values falling. If we repeat the experience of the Great Financial Crash of 2007-08, that would imply real rates (i.e., adjusted for deflation) rising to as high as 6%-10%. That would usher in an economic depression at a time when the U.S. economy is in much worse shape to weather adversity than in 1929. Back then, a third of the workforce was tied to the agricultural economy, literally living off the land. This time, perhaps 80% of the workforce is tied to bullshit. That figure is not invented, by the way; it is simply extrapolated from Musk's firing 80% of Twitter's employees without impairing the company's ability to carry on normally.

It has been years since the E-Mini S&Ps created a bearish impulse leg of daily-chart degree. They did so last week, however, with a plunge that breached the required two lows: a small 'internal' from December 10, and the external low at 5921.00 recorded on November 19. The implication is that the urgent short-squeeze rally on Friday will sputter out shortly, allowing the futures to resume their well-deserved slide into hell. It will be interesting to see whether this happens before New Year's, which would be the kind of shocker that takes everyone, bull and short-covering bear alike, down with it.  This seems difficult to imagine, given that the rigged support system for the stock market is ubiquitous. It includes Fed funny-money, portfolio managers locked into a handful of high-fliers, and share buybacks by companies with many more tens of billions than they know what to do with. Be patient, permabears. Your day is coming, probably sooner rather than later.