By Elliott Wave International

There’s no shortage of books about trading these days, and you could read for months before you come across one that might apply to your trading style.

The free 45-page eBook The Best of Trader’s Classroom is specifically for Elliott wave traders and saves you time in getting the knowledge you want.

It’s written by Elliott wave trader Jeffrey Kennedy: he had individuals like you in mind when he said

I began my career as a small trader, so I know firsthand how hard it can be to get simple explanations of methods that consistently work. In more than 15 years as an analyst since my early trading days, I’ve learned many lessons, and I don’t think that they should have to be learned the hard way.

The Best of Trader’s Classroom offers 14 trading insights that you can use now.

Consider these examples of what you’ll learn:

• Use bar patterns to spot trading setups
• Use the Wave Principle to set protective stops
• Identify Fibonacci retracements
• Apply Fibonacci ratios to real-world trading

Jeffrey also discusses corrective patterns which includes the triangle formation. Here’s an edited eBook excerpt:

Triangles are probably the easiest corrective wave pattern to identify, because prices simply trade sideways during these periods. [The graphic below] shows the different shapes triangles can take.

….triangles offer an important piece of forecasting information — they only occur just prior to the final wave of a sequence. This is why triangles are strictly limited to the wave four, B or X positions. In other words, if you run into a triangle, you know the train is coming into the station.

Jeffrey goes on to provide three real world examples of the triangle price pattern. Here’s one of them with his accompanying commentary.

[The chart above] shows a slight variation of a contracting triangle, called a running triangle. A running triangle occurs when wave B makes a new extreme beyond the origin of wave A. This type of corrective wave pattern occurs frequently in commodities.

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This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline 14 Elliott Wave Trading Insights You Can Use Now. 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 price range from the Feb 5, 2011 high in the SP500 to the April 10, 2011 low is 295.81 points. I used the Look Ahead function in the software to determine that this price range (when converted to degrees of a circle) would Square at 125 (points or days). It took only a second to see that the Feb 4, 2012 high at 1422.38 occurred 124 trading days from the April low. Only 1 degree from an exact Square.

That information, combined with the bearish breakout from the Roadmap Channels, leads me to believe that a major top has occurred in the US Stock Market. The Roadmap Channels themselves are derived mathematically and could have been drawn exactly as shown on April 10, 2011.

]]> http://www.tradingfives.com/blog2/marketclub-update-59/feed/ 0 http://www.tradingfives.com/blog2/the-manic-depressive-stock-market-what-to-make-of-it/ http://www.tradingfives.com/blog2/the-manic-depressive-stock-market-what-to-make-of-it/#comments Thu, 03 May 2012 19:32:07 +0000 admin http://www.tradingfives.com/blog2/?p=193 The psychology of the market may be teetering on the edge

May 2, 2012

By Elliott Wave International

The stock market: one week it acts like Dr. Jekyll, the next week it’s Mr. Hyde.

That shift can even occur in the course of a single session.

These dramatic fluctuations appear to be impulsive; and we know that impulse does not flow from cold reason. Even so, the Efficient Market Hypothesis would have us believe that investors are constantly applying reason and logic to reach some objective market pricing, via the latest news or measure of stock market valuation.

The February 2010 Elliott Wave Theorist provides insight:

The Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) and its variants in academic financial modeling…rely at least implicitly but usually quite explicitly upon the bedrock ideas of exogenous cause and rational reaction. Stunningly, as far as I can determine, no evidence supports these premises…

EMH argues that as new information enters the marketplace, investors revalue stocks accordingly. If this were true, then the stock market averages would look something like the illustration shown [below].

We know that the market does not unfold in the way illustrated above. But we do know that the market has unfolded like this:

So in 2000, did a sudden burst of logic lead investors to realize that the NASDAQ was over-valued?

No. Technology stocks had absurd price/earnings ratios long before the NASDAQ top.

The NASDAQ’s abrupt switch from Hyde to Jekyll stemmed from investors’ collective unconscious. Consider the gazelle that runs in panic because others are: it does not pause to rationally survey the landscape. It explodes in a burst of speed that reaches 90 km/hr within seconds.

Decades ago, multimillionaire stock market operator Bernard Baruch said

…the stock market is people. It is people trying to read the future. And it is this intensely human quality that makes the stock market so dramatic an arena, in which men and women pit their conflicting judgments, their hopes and fears, strengths and weaknesses, greeds and ideals.

This psychology of the marketplace unfolds in waves. That is what we study.

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The FREE 50-page Independent Investor eBook will challenge conventional notions about investing and explain market behaviors that most people consider "inexplicable."

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This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline The Manic-Depressive Stock Market: What to Make of It. 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.

]]> http://www.tradingfives.com/blog2/marketclub-afternoon-update-426/feed/ 0 http://www.tradingfives.com/blog2/u-s-financial-system-is-it-finally-stable/ http://www.tradingfives.com/blog2/u-s-financial-system-is-it-finally-stable/#comments Thu, 26 Apr 2012 21:15:59 +0000 admin http://www.tradingfives.com/blog2/?p=189 Bernanke comments raise questions about banks

April 25, 2012

By Elliott Wave International

Four years after we brushed up against "financial Armageddon," did you think you’d be reading this?

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said…banks need to have more capital at hand in order to ensure the financial system is stable. Bernanke said regulators were taking steps to force financial institutions to hold higher capital buffers…

- Reuters, April 9

It appears our financial system is still not as stable as it needs to be. But guess who relaxed the banking system’s "capital buffers" in the first place?

The Fed increased the credit in the system in the 1990s by the de facto removal of reserve requirements for banks.

- Robert Prechter, Elliott Wave Theorist, November 2011

Prechter’s September 2011 Theorist provides this additional insight:

In the late 1990s and mid 2000s, the loan-to-deposit ratio for U.S. banks was nearly 1.00, meaning that almost all deposits were lent out. That shortfall alone was a serious problem, because if even 5% of depositors had decided to withdraw their money, banks would have been unable to pay. Some of the banks’ loans were quickly callable, but by 2006, the credit-fueled real estate boom had claimed a large percentage of outstanding loans, both inside and outside the banking system. These loans are not quickly callable. The problem was serious in 2002 and enormous in 2006. Now it has become acute, because many loans are becoming fossilized, as the market for mortgage investing has dried up while foreclosures on the "collateral" have been slowed by court actions and politics.

The specter of a banking panic has become far darker since the collateral for bank deposits — land and buildings — has fallen globally in value at the steepest rate since the Great Depression. One day this shortfall in collateral value will impress itself on people’s minds, and there will be an unprecedented run on banks around the globe as panicked depositors try to become the first ones out the door. Banks are designed so that the first depositors to withdraw get 100%; the losers wait in a long, slow line to split the proceeds that come from selling the deeds. Yes, I know about the FDIC, but I don’t believe it will be able to fulfill its promises when most banks go bust.

We believe that you should plan ahead for a run on bank deposits. Let me share with you another excerpt from that Reuters article. These are direct quotes from Bernanke (emphasis added):

Additional steps to increase the resiliency of money market funds are important for the overall stability of our financial system and warrant serious consideration…

The risk of runs … remains a concern, particularly since some of the tools that policymakers employed to stem the runs during the crisis are no longer available…

Now is the time for you to get the names of the 100 "strongest banks" in the United States. This free list gives you the 2 "strongest banks" in each of the 50 states, based on data effective January 31, 2012.

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This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline U.S. Financial System: Is It Finally Stable?. 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.

By Elliott Wave International

Make no mistake: The stakes for financial and economic survival in Europe are high. Seemingly everyone — from investment bloggers to financial television hosts — has something to say about the European debt crisis.

But with so many divergent opinions to choose from, which ones should you trust?

That’s where Elliott Wave International’s global-market analysis team comes in. Our analysts cut through the noise of endless talking heads with an independent perspective. By focusing on objective Elliott waves and other technical indicators, they equip you to stay one step ahead of Europe’s financial turmoil.

Case in point: Just over one year ago in late March 2011, mainstream analysts conjectured about the probability of a Portuguese bailout. Many people had opinions, but no one was talking about the most important indicator, namely that Portugal’s borrowing costs had just crossed a critical threshold. No one, that is, except EWI European market analyst Brian Whitmer.

Here’s what he told his readers in the April 1, 2011, Global Market Perspective (emphasis added):

Observe the horizontal line on this chart of 10-year borrowing costs in Greece, Ireland and Portugal. It’s no magic number, but 8% seems to be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back. As the arrow on the left shows, Greek authorities activated their bailout package on April 23, 2010, two days after 10-year yields crossed 8%. In Ireland, bond yields surpassed 8% on November 10, 2010, and Irish authorities activated their bailout the following week. Mark your calendar, because Portuguese yields made the treacherous crossing two days ago. The implication is that the continent’s third sovereign bailout in less than a year has become a near certainty.

A "near certainty," indeed. Just five days after Whitmer published this analysis, Portugal’s government officially requested a bailout, and, one month later, it got one.

You see, EWI’s global analysts like Whitmer don’t follow the talking heads nor do they rely on fundamentals — both of which can be misleading. Instead, they examine objective evidence and charts — like this one — to deliver crystal-clear, forward-thinking analysis.

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This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline Portugal’s Bailout, One Year Later: Were You Prepared in Advance?. 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.

By Elliott Wave International

It’s been over two years since the European Central Bank began its open-heart surgery of the eurozone’s anemic economy. So far, the procedure has included an unprecedented $3 trillion-plus in bailouts, monetary transfusions, AND toxic debt transplants.

Yet, according to a recent slew of discomforting news reports, the economies across the pond would still flatline in seconds without constant life support. Here, an April 18, 2012, Wall Street Journal writes:

"Europe Hemorrhages through Refinancing Operation Band-Aid" and reveals that Europe’s banking sector has wolfed down three years of Long Term Refinancing Operations (LTROs) in under four months.

The question is — what went wrong?

Well, to answer this, we have to go back to the drawing board to mid-2010. It was then that the European Central Bank and company released therescue-package Kraken via a $1 trillion bailout of Greece and a full-fledged initiation of its LTRO.

And, as the following May 10, 2010, news items make plain, this credit-reflating beast was set to tear Europe’s economic bear to shreds:

• "This is shock-and-awe, part II, in 3D, with a much bigger budget and more impressive array of special effects. The EU package eliminates the danger that Greece’s debt woes will ricochet through Europe’s banks." (USA Today)
• "This is a truly overwhelming force and should be more than sufficient to stabilize markets, prevent panic and contain the risk of contagion."(Bloomberg Businessweek)

In the July 2010 Global Market Perspective, however, our analysts foresaw a fatal flaw in the plan. The first part was fine: The European Central Bank (ECB) bought packages of debt and resold them to smaller banks at a historically low interest rate.

BUT the second part didn’t work out: Instead of rebundling those loans and passing them on to small businesses to stimulate investment, THOSE banks redeposited the funds with the ECB. Riffing off the famous "Jaws" quote ("We’re gonna need a bigger boat"), the July 2010 Global Market Perspective captured the great-white fear circling the lending sector via the following chart of commercial banks’ usage of the ECB’s Deposit Facility and wrote:

"The chart roughly indicates the degree to which banks fear for the insolvency of one another. Banks receive below-market interest rates on their ECB deposits, so they’re generally loathe to hold significant funds there. As anxiety grows, however, so do banks’ deposits in the Facility, mainly because their desire for adequate interest gives way to their more essential need to safeguard principal … Because the [economic downturn] is still young, deposits at the ECB will likely keep rising. Like stocks, the casual approach to banking that existed up until now is in for a massive shift."

Flash two years ahead. The April 2012 Global Market Perspective’s updated chart below shows that usage of the ECB’s Deposit Facility has indeed risen, nay doubled, since the original forecast.

The question now is not whether monetary policy will save Europe’s economy, but whether the one precondition for recovery — confidence — will return to lenders.

What the European Debt Crisis Could Mean for YOUR Investments

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This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline European Central Bank: "Great White Fear" Takes A Bite Out of Recovery. 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.

By Elliott Wave International

In the play "The Secret to Freedom," Pulitzer prize writer Archibald MacLeish had a character say this:

The only thing about a man that is a man is his mind. Everything else you can find in a pig or a horse.

MacLeish knew how to state the truth plainly.

And the truth is, you can use your mind in any way you wish.

When it comes to financial markets, most allow others to do their thinking for them. You’ve heard the phrase "the blind following the blind." Yes, they both fall into the ditch.

At Elliott Wave International, our mission is to keep our subscribers out of the ditch. To do so, we must first do our own financial thinking before offering our conclusions to subscribers.

Robert Prechter found it easier to think independently by being physically removed from Wall Street. In this excerpt from the book Prechter’s Perspective, Prechter was responding to an interviewer who asked about Prechter living 60 miles north of Atlanta:

It’s an advantage in my opinion to be away from the storm of mass psychology that exists in the financial centers. I have purposely distanced myself from New York to avoid the overload of superfluous information that you are exposed to there. I am an observer of crowd behavior. I think it is extremely difficult to shield yourself from the crowd’s influence when you are part of it.

Now, we don’t advocate contrarianism for its own sake. That would be just as big a mistake as letting the Wall Street crowd do your thinking for you.

That said, our financial analysis is born of deliberate independence.

Granted, the crowd might be right for a time, but generally not for long, and never at important turning points.

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This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline Stock Market Turning Points: Has Wall Street Ever Warned You in Time?. 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.

By Elliott Wave International

I came across some research on the subject of worry. Here’s how it was presented:

Things People Worry About:

• things that never happen – 40%
• things which did happen that worrying can’t undo – 30%
• needless health worries – 12%
• petty, miscellaneous worries – 10%
• real, legitimate worries – 8%

Of the legitimate worries, half are problems beyond our personal ability to solve. That leaves 4% in the realm of worries people can do something about.

I thought about our gigantic national debt and weak economy. These seem to fit into both subcategories of "real" worries. You can’t do much as an individual to solve the nation’s debt and economic problems, yet you can prepare for a worsening economic downtrend.

Do we see evidence for an economic turn for the worse?

Well, consider that the evidence is so overwhelming that it took 456 pages of the second edition of Robert Prechter’s book, Conquer the Crash, to cover it. And since that book published, Prechter has consistently devoted his monthly Elliott Wave Theorist to the facts and evidence behind his forecast.

Here’s a chart from the book that was updated by Elliott Wave International in March 2012:

The downturn from 2008 is critically important, as it shows that after an almost unbroken 60-year climb, the contraction is underway. It surely has much further to go, because it is still a third higher than it was at the outset of the last debt deflation in 1929.

– The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast, March 2012

The rating agencies are well aware of what the above chart means. You probably know that Standard & Poor’s downgraded U.S. debt from the nation’s long-standing triple-A to AA+. Now, another rating agency has taken their rating even lower:

Rating firm Egan-Jones cuts its credit rating on the U.S. government to "AA" from "AA+" with a negative watch, citing a lack of progress in cutting the mounting federal debt.

– CNBC.com, April 5

Robert Prechter’s bestseller, Conquer the Crash, provides practical information about what you can do to protect your finances in the coming economic implosion. And right now, Elliott Wave International is offering 8 lessons from Conquer the Crash in a free 42-page report that covers:

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This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline How to Handle an Economic Implosion. 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.