April 6, 2025 | Trump About to Kick the Bear Market’s Ass
A word of advice if you’re looking for bankable information on the direction of the economy: tune out the mainstream media’s cavalcade of Trump-deranged bozos and focus on the 4820 target in the SPX chart above. Think of it as Trump’s lucky number, but also a very good place for these all-too-interesting times to find […]
March 30, 2025 | ‘Golden Era’ Could Face a Deep Valley First
Here’s some cold water on the notion that Trump’s radical trade policies could help bring about an economic golden era. I’d written here last week that punitive tariffs might be the only medicine strong enough to jolt the world into doing honest business. Foreign manufacturers would leap to relocate their plants to the U.S. in […]
March 23, 2025 | Are New Highs Coming? Here’s How to Tell…
The Trump wild card has made it especially difficult to bet on the stock market. Even cynics can’t say for sure that his radical agenda will not eventually produce an economic golden era capable of pushing the Dow average to 100,000 or higher. In just two short months, the president has crushed wokeness and racial […]
March 16, 2025 | One Last Melt-Up?
Will there be one last melt-up before this doddering bull market seeks penance? Some of my fellow gurus believe a final show of bravado is coming, especially those who base their predictions on Elliott Wave Theory. I think the party is over, but I’m forced to admit that if too many traders agree with me, […]
March 9, 2025 | It’s All About Buying Those Dips
I’ve written here before about how the broad averages have struggled to go lower during what could turn out to be the initial phase of a bear market. Many traders, particularly greenhorns too young to have never experienced a bear market, appear to be buying each step of the way down. They could do so […]
March 2, 2025 | A ‘Formula’ for Preparedness
You’ve heard from ‘Formula382’ before. A longtime Rick’ Picks subscriber, he manages wealth in the Ozarks, using puts and calls aggressively, with a dollop of good timing, to keep clients happy. He has also shown uncanny skill at rotating out of sectors just before they peak. In a recent chat room discussion, Formula wondered whether […]
February 23, 2025 | Who’s Telling the Truth about DeepSeek?
I’m tracking Nvidia shares closely because they can tell us whether China’s DeepSeek threatens America’s lead in AI development. The Nasdaq-listed stock got pummeled a month ago when the Chinese revealed they were developing an open-source chatbot that can easily compete on performance and price with the most advanced models offered by OpenAI and other […]
February 16, 2025 | Wonks and Eggheads Still Don’t ‘Get’ Trump
Trump promised everything but a cure for cancer during last Thursday’s press conference, and there was no doubting his sincerity or his commitment to helping to shape a better world. Can he do it? One thinks of Teddy Roosevelt, who possessed seemingly limitless energy and zeal for taking on big projects, including building a national […]
February 9, 2025 | Juicing Our Bull Market Bellwether
Get the forecast for Microsoft right and you cannot go far wrong guessing where the stock market is headed next. This has been an article of faith at Rick’s Picks for years, and it has served us well. The chart shows MSFT either moving in lock-step with the Dow Industrials, or sometimes leading the Indoos with pullbacks […]
February 2, 2025 | Mainstream Media Muffle China’s Breakthrough
Bloggers were revved up when last week began, trumpeting a warning that China’s DeepSeek R1 threatened to crush America’s capital-intensive effort to lead the world in AI development. ZeroHedge was among the first to jump on the story. “The future of humanity is being decided as we speak,” wrote Mark Whitney. “This is a full-blown, […]
January 26, 2025 | Nifty Trick Keeps the Bull Alive
I still expect Bitcoin to notch one or two more record highs on the hourly chart, but they will likely be the dying gasp of the bull market that began in 2009. There is reason to doubt that the broad averages will be swept up in this fetid blast of flatulence. That would […]
January 19, 2025 | Microsoft
Get Microsoft right, as I continue to remind you, and your forecast for the stock market can’t go far wrong. The tech giant is among the most valuable companies in the world, with extraordinary profit margins tied to an 80% market share in operating systems. The subscription-based revenue model the company has put in place […]
January 12, 2025 | Who Will Insure Us Against the Next Disaster?
Although the major indices were down just 1.6% on Friday, it felt like a big day. Everything that matters to the U.S. economy was moving the wrong way: stocks were falling across the board; interest rates and energy prices were climbing; dollars were growing dearer, especially for debtors; and gold, perhaps imagining a bevy of […]
January 5, 2025 | It’s Time to Tune Out Wall Street’s Siren Song
The party is over, or so says the chart above. It is a long-term picture of the E-Mini S&Ps, and it shows the futures rolling down after touching a 6136 target that has been nearly five years in coming. Actually, it has taken nearly 16 years to get there since the longest bull market in […]


