Quote from Champion:
fireflyx, thanks for your answer.
Using 18 points on YM what happens if you get an extended upmove of maybe 50 points without 18 in the opposite direction?
If you have sold after 18 points, what do I do next? I am looking at a loss? Do I put it done to an incorrect perspective?
Have I put that scenario correctly? Or should I be adding something else?
I'm just putting it simplistically to understand what the usual snags are.
No problem.
If I am understanding your first series of questions correctly, you are asking 'if I count 18 points in an uptrend and go short, what happens if I don't get an 18 point downtrend to follow?'
Well, if your count is structurally sound using the principle of "significance" (which I will attempt to explain shortly) your count should result in some sort of downward move. Since price movement at any scale in the market will always fill the (counting) requirements of the the higher scales (the bubble up theory), your theoretical 18 point count would exist within the counting context of the higher scale.
I've attached a chart to illustrate. The area marked in red (when zoomed in on) is an 18 point count. But it's context is wave 3 of the bull market in the S&P - the 2003 movement.
A trader should expect his low count to be contained within a high count at slightly higher wave scales. A 6 point movement is the minimal expectation. 8 point high counts are also very frequent.
So in this developing high count you have all these low sequence structures building on them from the ground up.
Continuing on the theme of the graphic, let's say you shorted above the first terminal dot based on the 18 pt. low count. Now you're not expecting a really large movement down, since this is just wave 4, not the end of movement at this scale. But you still need to pinpoint the low terminal of this 4th wave. This would require zooming in on this wave and counting another low sequence down. Where this terminates wave 5 will ensue at the higher scale.
The perfect perspective for this zooming turns out to be a weekly chart showing 1 year of data. I will attach this chart directly below in a new post.
The count is a very clear 14 point downcount within a 7 wave high sequence. (If you continue to zoom in on this by switching form weekly to daily, a couple of low sequences will appear - a 14 pt. over 3 large waves, then a connecting movement (called a scale shift), then an 18 pt. over another 3 larger waves to complete the whole). Basically, when there is a satisfaction that a noticable high count structure is ending and a specific low count can be seen to comprise it, you are near a terminal.
ON SIGNIFICANCE
You'll notice in the graphic attached to this post that there are some gray rectangles around some of the events (waves). These are events that were discounted because their vertical measurement was less than the least of the counted events. IOW, they are below the "significance threshold." Though they are visable they belong to a count from another (lower) scale.
The market creates its own meaning (assigning a signficance to each event) using vertical height. (A pair of dividers is an essential analytical tool). This is the reason for increased volatility - price is creating meaning at a higher scale...
In this way the market weaves its fabric of events to create a larger picture. Just like individual threads combining to form a piece of clothing. Some fibers are microscopic, others are larger, but they all fit together...
Anyway, you probably should not worry about discounting for now. If you choose a good perspective (or point of observation) for your analysis you will seldom need to discount many events or employ a threshold.
Dang, I hope this isn't too much too quick... But all of you who have posted seem to be catching on extremely quick (that's good to see...).
Rgds,
fx