In an earlier post I pulled the old HUI 888 skeleton out of my closet. 888 (AKA the 3 Snowmen) was a target measurement based on how the chart looked in 2010. It can be liberating to take your worst call and publicize it for the world to see. They tell me that you sell a lot of newsletters that way too . All market geniuses should try it once in a while.

Kidding aside, it can be a lesson in learning from mistakes. Can this chart tell us anything of value today?

Larger Image - HUI monthly chart (through 2010)

Well what have we here? Oh yes, it is the Russell 2000, an index I used last summer to help stay on the bull path.

Larger Image - RUT monthly chart

So if HUI was going to 888 I guess that the RUT is going to 1394...

Larger Image - DIA monthly chart

...and the DIA is going to 197...

Larger Image - SPY monthly chart

...and SPY to 216?

Larger Image - HUI monthly chart (current)

Well that sounds all well and good, but if Huey has any sage-like advice to give today's US stock market bulls, it might be something like 'targets are just measurements, not directives'. Huey might also say 'get ready for a year-long grind that mashes up bulls and bears prior to some very bearish events to come'.

Another thought with respect to the gold stocks... I am glad that they are disconnecting from the broad US market. If HUI were to find support here, they could be on their way higher if the regular markets simply grind it out for many months. Alternatively, if the HUI crashes to the worst implications of the big topping pattern from 2009 to 2012 (it measures to 100), then you might extrapolate forward and wave bye bye USA a couple of years down the road.

Hey, why so gloomy? It's just a gold stock index. Well yes, but the road map looks uncannily good. Best that the gold stocks find support either here or at the next target of 250 and begin to point the way forward.

[edit] Postscript:

The gold stocks ended a secular bear and led the way out of the first broad US cyclical bear market early last decade. They were among the downside leaders into the 2008 crash and they absolutely launched ahead of everything else that would eventually recover into what we called 'Hope 09' back then. So the above corollary is more than a random jumble of charts with similarities. 'Hope 09' is now 4 years on and anyone buying the US stock market as a committed investor now is likely to find disappointment or worse going forward.