Larry’s commentary

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 going, and it is not a pretty picture. The punditry, editorialists and TV bozos can blather all they want about the economy’s supposedly soft landing, but this is wishful thinking and just crap.  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.

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.

GDXJ is probably within no more than five points of groping its way to the bottom of the textbook head-and-shoulders pattern shown in the hourly chart (see inset). If it’s going to revive sooner rather than later, though, the secondary pivot at 43.44 would be a logical place for this to occur. You can bottom-fish there with a tight stop-loss, using expiring call options if you’ve got the chops. I’ve used a dubious one-off ‘A’ high here, and the pattern could turn out to be governed by the marquee high at 55.58, so plan accordingly.

The Dollar Index pulled back hard on Friday, half-correcting the steep upthrust from two days earlier. Given how the uptrend impaled the midpoint Hidden Pivot (p=107.36), there is little room for doubt about whether D=109.30 will be reached. As noted earlier, that would keep weight on gold. It would also set up a potential ‘mechanical’ buying opportunity at p=107.36.  We don’t often do this trade at p, but the trend is so strong that waiting for a relapse to the green line (x=106.39) might leave us empty-handed when the turn comes.

I am playing fast and loose with crude’s ‘technicals’ this week, since chat-room interest in this symbol appears to be dead. As such, I have little reason to provide potentially tradable ABCD coordinates. Instead, here’s a perfectly serviceable pennant formation with the January contract falling to around 67.50 before it gratuitously reverses direction.  Nudge me in the chat room if you actively trade this symbol and require more-detailed guidance. A bearish bias is warranted, albeit with close attention to the vicious feints and head- and foot-fakes that have always characterized this vehicle’s movement.