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Elliott Wave Theory and Forecasting

Market Forecasting using Elliott Wave

What’s the Downside of Being Safe? (0)

 

In an interview with the Mind of Money, Robert Prechter stresses the importance of keeping your money safe in this bear market environment. According to the Elliott wave model, we have entered a critical phase in the market. This 3-minute video clip will help you to prepare for what’s ahead.

A Four-Chart Lesson in Spotting Trade Setups (0)

 

You can find low-risk, high-probability trading opportunities by trading with the trend. The trick is to find the end of market corrections, so you can position yourself for the next move in the direction of the trend.

This excerpt from Jeffrey Kennedy’s free 47-page eBook How to Spot Trading Opportunities explains where to find bullish and bearish trade setups in your charts and how to zero-in on these opportunities. If this lesson interests you, the full 47-page eBook is free through July 6.

On the left-hand side of the illustration below, there are two bullish trade setups. As traders, we want to wait for the wave (2) correction to be complete so we can catch the move up in wave (3) – this is the trade. What we are trying to do in this bullish trade setup is anticipate the potential for profits on the buy-side as prices move up in wave (3). Another bullish trade setup is at the end of wave (4).

As traders, we are looking to buy the pullback and position ourselves within the direction of the larger up-trend. Remember, three-wave moves are corrections, which means that they are countertrend structures. On the other hand, five-wave moves define the larger trend. As traders, we want to determine what the trend is and trade in the direction of the trend. Our buying opportunity to rejoin the trend is whenever the trend pauses and forms a correction.

Now, let’s look at the right-hand side of the illustration where we see two bearish setups. When a five-wave move is complete, it is retraced in three waves as a correction. The end of the five-wave move presents the first trading opportunity that we can take advantage of the short side (or the sell side) as the wave (A) down begins.

Notice the second bearish trade setup gives us another shorting opportunity as wave (B) tops.

So, within the classic wave pattern of five waves up and three waves down, we have four high-probability trading opportunities in which we are either positioning ourselves in the direction of the trend or identifying termination points of a trend. I want to share with you some tricks I have picked up over the years about how to analyze corrective waves and their termination points. The single most important thing I’ve learned from analyzing corrections is that corrective or countertrend price action is usually contained by parallel lines.

As shown above, draw the parallel lines by beginning at the origin of wave A and going to the extreme of wave B. You draw a parallel of that line off the extreme of wave A. So basically you have a small, slightly angled downward price channel. This will show you the containment region for wave C. It also shows you an area toward the bottom of the lower trend line where you can expect a reversal in price.

Here is another example. Again, you draw the parallel lines off the origin of wave A, the extreme of wave A and the extreme of wave B.

Toward the upper end of the upper trend line, you will usually see a reversal in price.

This example shows how countertrend price action is contained by parallel lines in the British pound, 60-minute, all sessions. Why is it important to know parallel lines contain the corrective or countertrend price action? Number one, it will increase your confidence that you are indeed labeling a countertrend move properly. Number two, it identifies areas where you will likely see prices reverse. For example, we see this reversal up near the top.

Improve Your Success with 14 Actionable Lessons in Trading
This brief trading lesson is just a small example of the opportunities you can find once you learn to identify key market patterns. Learn more in your free 47-page eBook, How to Spot Trading Opportunities. This valuable eBook is regularly $79, but you can get it free through July 6. Download your free copy of How to Spot Trading Opportunities now.

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International. EWI is the world’s largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

Can the Fed and Economists Forecast the Future? (0)

Elliott Wave Financial Forecast Editors Kendall and Hochberg on economists, the Fed and forecasting

Business Talk Radio host Gabriel Wisdom recently spoke with Pete Kendall, Co-Editor of EWI’s Elliott Wave Financial Forecast. Their discussion included a crucial but rarely asked question about economists and the Federal Reserve. Here’s the relevant excerpt:

Gabriel Wisdom: "Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, says the economy is slowing but there’s faster growth ahead. Is he wrong?"

Pete Kendall: "Economists are extrapolationists. They tend to look at what’s happening in the economy and extrapolate that forward. So here we have a situation where not just Bernanke but economists in general are looking at… what they call the ’soft patch’ and somehow contorting that into growth later in the year.

Pete’s startling reply flatly contradicts conventional wisdom. Most people believe that the Fed really is able to anticipate the economic future. After all, they’re the most "qualified." But what do the facts say?

Pete’s Elliott Wave Financial Forecast Co-Editor Steve Hochberg recently included this eye-opening chart (from Societe Generale Equity Research) in his new subscriber-exclusive video, "Buy and Hold, or Sell and Fold: Where Are The Markets Headed in 2011?"

Analysts Lag Reality. From 'Buy and Hold, or Sell and Fold: Where Are the Markets Headed in 2011?'

The red line in the chart is the S&P earnings, and the black line shows economists’ forecasts relative to those earnings. Here’s what James Montier, head of equity research for Societe Generale, said about it:

"The chart makes it transparently obvious that analysts lag reality. They only change their minds when there is irrefutable proof they were wrong, and then only change their minds very slowly." (emphasis added)

That comment is spot-on. In 2002-2003, as you can see, earnings turned up despite economists’ forecasts for earning declines. It took them a while to "turn the ship around" and play catch-up with the trend.

Yet in 2007-2008, earnings turned down — despite the forecast by economists for continued increases. The devastating truth is that earnings did more than fall in the first quarter of 2008: they had their first negative quarter in the history of the S&P. As Steve said in his subscriber video, "Economists were wrong to a record degree" — and investors felt the pain.

So what’s the point? Economists do extrapolate the trend. That approach works fine, until it doesn’t­ — and you’re on the hook.

Elliott wave analysis never extrapolates trends — it anticipates them. The Wave Principle recognizes that markets must rise and fall — and that they unfold according to changes in investor psychology, in a way that is patterned and recognizable.

—–

Most people believe that the Fed really is able to anticipate the economic future. Now you know the facts. Uncover other important myths and misconceptions about the economy and the markets by reading Market Myths Exposed.

EWI’s free Market Myths Exposed 33-page eBook takes the 10 most dangerous investment myths head on and exposes the truth about each in a way every investor can understand. Download your free copy now.

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline Can the Fed and Economists Forecast the Future? See This Startling Chart.. EWI is the world’s largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

How to Set Protective Stops Using the Wave Principle (0)

The 3 simple rules of Elliott wave analysis can help traders manage risk, ride market trends and spot price reversals

The 3 simple rules of Elliott wave analysis can help traders manage risk, ride market trends and spot price reversals.

EWI’s Chief Commodities Analyst Jeffrey Kennedy values the Wave Principle not only as an analytical tool, but also as a real-time trading tool. In this excerpt from Jeffrey’s free Best of Trader’s Classroom eBook, he shows you how the Wave Principle’s built-in rules can help you set your protective stops when trading.


Over the years that I’ve worked with Elliott wave analysis, I’ve learned that you can glean much of the information you require as a trader – such as where to place protective or trailing stops – from the three cardinal rules of the Wave Principle:

1. Wave two can never retrace more than 100% of wave one.
2. Wave four may never end in the price territory of wave one.
3. Wave three may never be the shortest impulse wave of waves one, three and five.

Let’s begin with rule No. 1: Wave two will never retrace more than 100% of wave one. In Figure 4-1, we have a five wave advance followed by a three-wave decline, which we will call waves (1) and (2). An important thing to remember about second waves is that they usually retrace more than half of wave one, most often making a .618 Fibonacci retracement of wave one. So in anticipation of a third-wave rally – which is where prices normally travel the farthest in the shortest amount of time – you should look to buy at or near the .618 retracement of wave one.

Elliott Wave Pattern

Where to place the stop: Once a long position is initiated, a protective stop can be placed one tick below the origin of wave (1). If wave two retraces more than 100% of wave one, the move can no longer be labeled wave two.

Now let’s examine rule No. 2: Wave four will never end in the price territory of wave one. This rule is useful because it can help you set protective stops in anticipation of catching a fifth-wave move to new highs. The most common Fibonacci retracement for fourth waves is .382 retracement of wave three.

Elliott Wave Count

Where to place the stop: As shown in Figure 4-2, the protective stop should go one tick below the extreme of wave (1). Something is wrong with the wave count if what you have labeled as wave four heads into the price territory of wave one. 

And, finally, rule No. 3: Wave three will never be the shortest impulse wave of waves one, three and five. Typically, wave three is the wave that travels the farthest in an impulse wave or five-wave move, but not always. In certain situations (such as within a Diagonal Triangle), wave one travels farther than wave three.

Elliott Wave Stop

Where to place the stop: When this happens, you consider a short position with a protective stop one tick above the point where wave (5) becomes longer than wave (3) (see Figure 4-3). Why? If you have labeled price action correctly, wave five will not surpass wave three in length; when wave three is already shorter than wave one, it cannot also be shorter than wave five. So if wave five does cover more distance in terms of price than wave three – thus breaking Elliott’s third cardinal rule – then it’s time to re-think your wave count.

The Best of Trader’s Classroom presents the 14 most critical lessons that every trader should know. You can download the entire 45-page eBook with a free Club EWI Membership. Download the free Best of Trader’s Classroom now.

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline How to Set Protective Stops Using the Wave Principle. EWI is the world’s largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

Think Lower Trade Deficit Is Bullish For the Stock Market? Now See This Chart (0)

U.S. trade gap narrowed in April, and many will see that as a bullish sign

"The Dow rose nearly 1 percent Thursday… Investors were encouraged by a report that the United States trade deficit had narrowed, one positive point in a recent string of weak economic data." (June 9, 2011, Reuters)

Before you join the crowd in thinking that shrinking trade gap is bullish for stocks, read this excerpt from the 2011 edition of our popular free Club EWI resource, The Independent Investor eBook.

*****

Over the past 30 years, hundreds of articles — you can find them on the web — have featured comments from economists about the worrisome nature of the U.S. trade deficit. It seems to be a reasonable thing to worry about. But has it been correct to assume throughout this time that an expanding trade deficit impacts the economy negatively? Figure 8 answers this question in the negative.

Trader Deficit Has Not Been Bearish

In fact, had these economists reversed their statements and expressed relief whenever the trade deficit began to expand and concern whenever it began to shrink, they would have accurately negotiated the ups and downs of the stock market and the economy over the past 35 years. The relationship, if there is one, is precisely the opposite of the one they believe is there. Over the span of these data, there in fact has been a positive — not negative — correlation between the stock market and the trade deficit.

It is no good saying, “Well, it will bring on a problem eventually.” Anyone who can see the relationship shown in the data would be far more successful saying that once the trade deficit starts shrinking, it will bring on a problem. Whether or not you assume that these data indicate a causal relationship between economic health and the trade deficit, it is clear that the “reasonable” assumption upon which most economists have relied throughout this time is 100% wrong.

Around 1998, articles began quoting a minority of economists who — probably after looking at a graph such as Figure 8 — started arguing the opposite claim. Fitting all our examples so far, they were easily able to reverse the exogenous-cause argument and have it still sound sensible. It goes like this: In the past 30 years, when the U.S. economy has expanded, consumers have used their money and debt to purchase goods from overseas in greater quantity than foreigners were purchasing goods from U.S. producers. Prosperity brings more spending, and recession brings less. So a rising U.S. economy coincides with a rising trade deficit, and vice versa. Sounds reasonable!

But once again there is a subtle problem. If you examine the graph closely, you will see that peaks in the trade deficit preceded recessions in every case, sometimes by years, so one cannot blame recessions for a decline in the deficit. Something is still wrong with the conventional style of reasoning.

*****

Read the expanded, 2011 edition of our popular free Club EWI resource, The Independent Investor eBook.

All you need is to create a free Club EWI profile. Here’s what else you’ll learn:

  • Why QE2 was a major tactical error
  • Why interest rates don’t drive stock prices.
  • Why rising oil prices are not bearish for stocks.            
  • Why earnings don’t drive stock prices.
  • What inflation has to do with the prices of gold and silver
  • Why central banks don’t control the markets.
  • Much more — 51 pages in all
Keep reading the free Independent Investor eBook now — all you need is a free Club EWI membership.

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline Think Lower Trade Deficit Is Bullish For the Stock Market? Now See This Chart. EWI is the world’s largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

Money in the Bank: Does It Still Mean "Safe and Sound?" (0)

free report: "Discover the Top 100 Safest U.S. Banks" explains the true risk that you may face when a bank fails.

Bank failures still dominate headlines as the number of failing banks continues at an alarming pace in 2011. The odds are that you’ve seen at least one bank failure in your community since the financial crisis hit in 2008. Some economists claim we’re in a recovery, yet hundreds of smaller financial institutions still suffer from the debt crisis that began a few years back.

Consider this May 25 post from author Kalyan Nandy, on the popular Atlanta real estate site CityBiz:

"Bank failures continue with no end in sight. Last Friday, U.S. regulators closed down three more banks, taking the total number to 43 so far in 2011…Looking back, there were 157 bank failures in 2010, 140 in 2009 and 25 in 2008.

"Issues like rock-bottom home prices, still-high loan defaults and deplorable unemployment levels are nagging troubles for such institutions…

"The number of banks on FDIC’s list of problem institutions shot up to 884 in the fourth quarter of 2010 from 860 in the previous quarter. This is the highest number since the savings and loan crisis in the early 1990s."

The following excerpt from Elliott Wave International’s free report, Discover the Top 100 Safest U.S. Banks, explains the true risk that you may face when a bank fails.

Why do banks fail? For nearly 200 years, the courts have sanctioned an interpretation of the term "deposits" to mean not funds that you deliver for safekeeping but a loan to your bank. Your bank balance, then, is an IOU from the bank to you, even though there is no loan contract and no required interest payment. Thus, legally speaking, you have a claim on your money deposited in a bank, but practically speaking, you have a claim only on the loans that the bank makes with your money. If a large portion of those loans is tied up or becomes worthless, your money claim is compromised.

A bank failure simply means that the bank has reneged on its promise to pay you back. The bottom line is that your money is only as safe as the bank’s loans. In boom times, banks become imprudent and lend to almost anyone. In busts, they can’t get much of that money back due to widespread defaults. If the bank’s portfolio collapses in value, say, like those of the Savings & Loan institutions in the U.S. in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the bank is broke, and its depositors’ savings are gone…

The U.S. government’s Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation guarantee just makes things far worse, for two reasons. First, it removes a major motivation for banks to be conservative with your money. Depositors feel safe, so who cares what’s going on behind closed doors? Second, did you know that most of the FDIC’s money comes from other banks? This funding scheme makes prudent banks pay to save the imprudent ones, imparting weak banks’ frailty to the strong ones. When the FDIC rescues weak banks by charging healthier ones higher "premiums," overall bank deposits are depleted, causing the net loan-to-deposit ratio to rise. This result, in turn, means that in times of bank stress, it will take a progressively smaller percentage of depositors to cause unmanageable bank runs.

If banks collapse in great enough quantity, the FDIC will be unable to rescue them all, and the more it charges surviving banks in "premiums," the more banks it will endanger. Thus, this form of insurance compromises the entire system. Ultimately, the federal government guarantees the FDIC’s deposit insurance, which sounds like a sure thing. But if tax receipts fall, the government will be hard pressed to save a large number of banks with its own diminishing supply of capital. The FDIC calls its sticker "a symbol of confidence," and that’s exactly what it is.

So what is the best course of action to safeguard your money?

Read our free 10-page report, Discover the Top 100 Safest U.S. Banks, to learn:

• The 5 major conditions at many banks that pose a danger to your money.
• The top two safest banks in your state.
• Bob Prechter’s recommendations for finding a safe bank.
• And more!

Download your free report, Discover the Top 100 Safest U.S. Banks, now.

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline Money in the Bank: Does It Still Mean "Safe and Sound?". EWI is the world’s largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

The Trend Is Your Friend: How Moving Averages Can Improve Your Market Analysis (0)

By Elliott Wave International

Many traders and investors use technical indicators to support their analysis. One of the most popular and reliable also happens to be an indicator that has been around for years and years — moving averages.

A moving average is simply the average value of data over a specific time period. Analysts use it to figure out whether the price of a stock or a commodity is trending up or down. It effectively "smooths out" the daily fluctuations to provide a more objective way to view a market.

Although simple to construct, moving averages are dynamic tools, because you can choose which data points and time periods to use to build them. For instance, you can choose to use the open, high, low, close or midpoint of a trading range and then study that moving average over a time period, from tick data to monthly price data or longer.

Moving Averages can help you identify the trend in a market, which is important since we all know that the trend is your friend. Yet certain moving averages can serve as support or resistance, and also alert you to trading opportunities.

This excerpt from EWI Senior Analyst Jeffrey Kennedy’s free eBook, How You Can Find High-Probability Trading Opportunities Using Moving Averages, shows how a popular moving average setting identified trading opportunities in the stock of Johnson & Johnson. Download the full 10-page eBook here.

A popular moving average setting that many people work with is the 13- and the 26-period moving averages in tandem. The figure below shows a crossover system, using a 13-week and a 26-week simple moving average of the close on a 2004 stock chart of Johnson & Johnson. Obviously, the number 26 is two times 13.

During this four-year period, the range in this stock was a little over $20.00, which is not much price appreciation. This dual moving average system worked well in a relatively bad market by identifying a number of buyside and sellside trading opportunities.
Learn to apply Moving Averages to your trading and investing by downloading Jeffrey Kennedy’s free 10-page eBook. Here’s what you’ll learn:

  • How to apply the three most popular moving average techniques.
  • How to decide which moving average parameters are best for the markets and time frames you trade.
  • How to avoid several common but dangerous myths about moving averages.

Download How You Can Find High-Probability Trading Opportunities Using Moving Averages now.

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline The Trend Is Your Friend: How Moving Averages Can Improve Your Market Analysis. EWI is the world’s largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

Putting the Elliott Wave Principle to Work (0)

In the video below, EWI Senior Commodity Analyst Jeffrey Kennedy walks you through a basic checklist of how to put the Wave Principle to work. This clip was taken from The Wave Principle Applied webinar, originally recorded for Futures Junctures subscribers.

Get 45 pages of FREE practical lessons in Elliott Wave International’s Best of Trader’s Classroom eBook

Would you like to learn more about trading with the Wave Principle? Get 45 pages of FREE practical lessons in Elliott Wave International’s Best of Trader’s Classroom eBook . Taken from Jeffrey Kennedy’s renowned Trader’s Classroom series, this FREE 45-page collection offers 14 actionable lessons that will help you determine entry points, stop levels and price targets for the markets you trade.

Download The Best of Trader’s Classroom now

Is It Possible to Have Panic Buying? (0)

"Panic selling" is easy to understand and recognize: Investors rush to sell from the fear of loss. No more explanation necessary.

On the other hand, "panic buying" is not easy to see for what it is. The phrase seems to clash with itself. People commonly assume that "buying" involves rational choices by investors, who assess risk, calculate entry points, establish stops, etc.

None of that happens in a panic. So how can you have "panic buying"?

For starters, you have it when fear actually motivates investors to buy. Whereas fear of loss motivates panic selling, investors get in a buying panic when they’re afraid of missing out on the profits they see everyone else making.

Such as, for example, panic buying in the silver market from late January through late April of this year. Buyers drove prices from $26.40 per oz. (Jan. 28) to $49.80 (April 25), a gain of more than 80 percent in under three months.

You probably have a good idea of what followed in the first week of May: more than half those gains vanished in four trading sessions. The direction changed, but the emotion did not. Fear inflated and deflated the same bubble.

This excerpt from Elliott Wave International’s free issue of Global Market Perspective depicts that panic.

The chart below shows that daily trading volume in the exchange-traded fund, the iShares Silver Trust (SLV), surged to a record 189 million shares on April 25, days prior to silver’s peak. Then, just a few days after the peak, on May 5, it reached nearly 300 million shares, another record. The first record was on buying fever, the second on a selling panic. As shown on the chart, both levels far surpass the daily trading volume in the S&P 500 SPDR (SPY), which is generally the most heavily traded fund in the world.

A Speculative Rout

Through Wednesday, seven out of the past nine days have seen the daily volume in SLV outpace that of SPY. This is unprecedented behavior. “Day traders are going crazy,” says the head of trading at one brokerage firm. “Investors who felt they may have missed the boat with gold have jumped into silver because it has a better price point,” said a precious metals analyst. A Bloomberg story attributes the rise in SLV’s volume to “worries about inflation and the weakness in the U.S. Dollar.” But the real reason, in our view, is simply the same old mania story. Higher prices in silver got people more excited about the prospects of even higher prices, as they always do. The excitement hit a speculative crescendo when SLV reached a new high of 48.35 on April 28, unconfirmed by the price of the metal itself.

Get the full story on Silver in the current issue of Global Market Perspective in a Special Section, titled "A Silver Bullet Sets Things in Motion." You can get the 100+ page issue FREE through May 31. It includes analysis and forecasts for world stock and interest rate markets, crude oil, metals, currencies and more.

Download your FREE issue of Global Market Perspective now.

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International. EWI is the world’s largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

5 Ways the Wave Principle Can Improve Your Trading (0)

Jeffrey Kennedy brings more than 15 years of experience to his position as Elliott Wave International’s Senior Analyst and trading instructor. He knows firsthand how hard it can be to get simple explanations of a trading method that works — so he shares his knowledge with his subscribers each month in the Trader’s Classroom lessons.

Here’s an excerpt from The Best of Trader’s Classroom, a free 45-page eBook that gives you the 14 most critical lessons every trader should know. Download the full eBook free here.

Every trader, every analyst and every technician has favorite techniques to use when trading. But where traditional technical studies fall short, the Wave Principle kicks in to show high-probability price targets. Just as important, it can distinguish high-probability trade setups from the ones that traders should ignore.

Where Technical Studies Fall Short
There are three categories of technical studies: trend-following indicators, oscillators and sentiment indicators. Trend-following indicators include moving averages, Moving Average Convergence-Divergence (MACD) and Directional Movement Index (ADX). A few of the more popular oscillators many traders use today are Stochastics, Rate-of-Change and the Commodity Channel Index (CCI). Sentiment indicators include Put-Call ratios and Commitment of Traders report data.

Technical studies like these do a good job of illuminating the way for traders, yet they each fall short for one major reason: they limit the scope of a trader’s understanding of current price action and how it relates to the overall picture of a market. For example, let’s say the MACD reading in XYZ stock is positive, indicating the trend is up. That’s useful information, but wouldn’t it be more useful if it could also help to answer these questions: Is this a new trend or an old trend? If the trend is up, how far will it go? Most technical studies simply don’t reveal pertinent information such as the maturity of a trend and a definable price target — but the Wave Principle does.

How Does the Wave Principle Improve Trading?
Here are five ways the Wave Principle improves trading:

1. Identifies Trend
The Wave Principle identifies the direction of the dominant trend. A five-wave advance identifies the overall trend as up. Conversely, a five-wave decline determines that the larger trend is down. Why is this information important? Because it is easier to trade in the direction of the dominant trend, since it is the path of least resistance and undoubtedly explains the saying, "the trend is your friend."

2. Identifies Countertrend
The Wave Principle also identifies countertrend moves. The three-wave pattern is a corrective response to the preceding impulse wave. Knowing that a recent move in price is merely a correction within a larger trending market is especially important for traders because corrections are opportunities for traders to position themselves in the direction of the larger trend of a market.

3. Determines Maturity of a Trend
As Elliott observed, wave patterns form larger and smaller versions of themselves. This repetition in form means that price activity is fractal, as illustrated in Figure 2-1. Wave (1) subdivides into five small waves, yet is part of a larger five-wave pattern. How is this information useful? It helps traders recognize the maturity of a trend. If prices are advancing in wave 5 of a five-wave advance for example, and wave 5 has already completed three or four smaller waves, a trader knows this is not the time to add long positions. Instead, it may be time to take profits or at least to raise protective stops.
Figure 2-1

4. Provides Price Targets
What traditional technical studies simply don’t offer — high-probability price targets — the Wave Principle again provides. When R.N. Elliott wrote about the Wave Principle in Nature’s Law, he stated that the Fibonacci sequence was the mathematical basis for the Wave Principle. Elliott waves, both impulsive and corrective, adhere to specific Fibonacci proportions, as illustrated in Figure 2-2. For example, common objectives for wave 3 are 1.618 and 2.618 multiples of wave 1. In corrections, wave 2 typically ends near the .618 retracement of wave 1, and wave 4 often tests the .382 retracement of wave 3. These high-probability price targets allow traders to set profit-taking objectives or identify regions where the next turn in prices will occur.
Figure 2-2
5. Provides Specific Points of Ruin
At what point does a trade fail? Many traders use money management rules to determine the answer to this question, because technical studies simply don’t offer one. Yet the Wave Principle does — in the form of Elliott wave rules.

Rule 1: Wave 2 can never retrace more than 100% of wave 1.
Rule 2: Wave 4 may never end in the price territory of wave 1.
Rule 3: Out of the three impulse waves — 1, 3 and 5 — wave 3 can never be the shortest.

A violation of one or more of these rules implies that the operative wave count is incorrect. How can traders use this information? If a technical study warns of an upturn in prices, and the wave pattern is a second wave pullback, the trader knows specifically at what point the trade will fail — a move beyond the origin of wave 1. That kind of guidance is difficult to come by without a framework like the Wave Principle.

Technical studies can pick out many trading opportunities, but the Wave Principle helps traders discern which ones have the highest probability of being successful. This is because the Wave Principle is the framework that provides history, current information and a peek at the future. When traders place their technical studies within this strong framework, they have a better basis for understanding current price action.

Don’t miss the rest of the 14 most critical lessons that every trader should know. Download the free 45-page eBook The Best of Trader’s Classroom.

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline 5 Ways the Wave Principle Can Improve Your Trading. EWI is the world’s largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

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