Suppress Figure Number in Caption While Show Figure Number When Referencing It

Question

I encountered a strange problem when referencing to figure in text. The link to the figure is established as is evidenced in the red box in the compiled PDF. But it is the question mark instead of figure number that is shown up in the red box. Could somebody help me troubleshoot this?

The PDF snapshot is here:

The code is below (I used \usepackage{caption} to suppress the figure number in the caption, I swap the order of \caption and \label and it does not help):

\begin{description}
    \item[ideal market theorem:] the ideal market picture consists of an uptrend, top, downtrend, and bottom (figure~\ref{fig:DowIdealMarketPicture}), interspersed with retracements and consolidations, the purpose of the ideal market picture is to provide a generalized model of the stock market's price behavior over time, it presumes that prices \underline{oscillate} over long periods based on the accumulated \underline{emotion} of investors as well as the facts of the \underline{business cycle}
        \begin{figure}[hbt]
            \centering
            \includegraphics[scale=0.54]{Figure/DowIdealMarketPicture}
            \caption*{figure 2.1 the Dow theory ideal market picture}
            \label{fig:DowIdealMarketPicture}
        \end{figure}
\end{description}

The the log file contains the following warning message:

Package caption Warning: \label without proper reference on input line 150. See the caption package documentation for explanation.

Answer 1

You'll have to set \@currentlabel manually. If you're using hyperref as well, then an additional \phantomsection should provide the correct hypertarget.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{caption,graphicx}
\usepackage{hyperref}

\makeatletter
\newcommand{\setrefnumber}{\phantomsection\renewcommand{\@currentlabel}}%
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\begin{description}
    \item[ideal market theorem:] the ideal market picture consists of an uptrend, 
    top, downtrend, and bottom (figure~\ref{fig:DowIdealMarketPicture}), interspersed 
    with retracements and consolidations, the purpose of the ideal market picture is 
    to provide a generalized model of the stock market's price behavior over time, it 
    presumes that prices \underline{oscillate} over long periods based on the 
    accumulated \underline{emotion} of investors as well as the facts of the 
    \underline{business cycle}
    
    \begin{figure}[hbt]
      \setrefnumber{2.1}%
      \centering
      \includegraphics[width = .5\linewidth]{example-image}
      \caption*{figure 2.1 the Dow theory ideal market picture}
      \label{fig:DowIdealMarketPicture}
    \end{figure}
\end{description}

\end{document}

Note how \setrefnumber{<whatever>} is placed at the top of the figure environment so the \reference hyperlink jumps to the top of the figure.