Quote from Landis82:
The worst thing you can do is ignore the primary trend of the market and try and play "Pick the Top".
Certainly, you can look for some sort of a fibonacci retracement as a potential target (such as 61.8% which equals 1229 SPX), but I'd rather use several simple moving averages to tell me whether the market is getting "tired" and due for a correction.
You might want to take a look at the period of 1971 - 1976.
It seems to echo pretty well the period from 2006 to the present.
if you cant get beyond calling everything manipulation you will never learn from your mistakes and will not be able to analyze why you were so horribly wrong about the market. we should learn from our mistakes. blaming it on manipulation does not keep you from making the same mistake next time.Quote from S2007S:
All upside is manipulation.
Quote from retaildaytrader:
No its not. The best thing you can do is play "Pick the Top" and here is my logic in a few examples.
Lets say its January 2000. You are very bearish and feel like technology is way overheated. So what do you do? What you should do is sit there on your seat doing nothing day after day until you can see the obvious downtrend. Then...you start shorting.
In the year 2000 example that would have been considerable waiting. In fact, there were a great many people who were bearish in 1998/1999, but the waiting would have been well worth it on the short side once the trend finally broke...
You should not trade against your emotions and when the market goes against your emotions then you should not trade. When the market finally confirms your emotions then you should trade. If you trade against your emotions, then that is a path to self destruction.
It was Jesse Livermore that said the most money he made was by sitting. If he had simply sat out many times during the market then he would have not lost any money...and would have had plenty of money to trade when the market confirmed his analysis.
It was Jim Rogers that said the best money can be made by just placing your cash in the bank and waiting for the right opportunity.
In 2006, I was very bearish, but the market simply was not confirming what I knew to be true. If I had just sat out and waited until the trend turned then I could have made a bunch by shorting the market. I have lost money in the past and each time I lost it was as a result of a lack of discipline and not waiting for what I knew to be true.
Sometimes sitting and waiting takes weeks and months waiting. What gets most people is that they simply cannot sit and wait...they must trade...they must do something from day to day. The market does not favor the individual that puts their time in and works hard, but it favors the opportunist that trades only on occasion.
You can ignore the primary trend just so long as you are sitting it out waiting for your turn to come. Your thesis of ignoring the primary trend only works until it doesnt. Lets say mid-1998. It took ten months for price to trade to right where it is now....and then a month for it trade right back where it was (down) 10 months prior.
Prechter is not wrong. You are only wrong if you lose money. Prechter does not trade therefore he does not lose any money...he is not wrong. The only person who is wrong is the person who is losing money.
Quote from retaildaytrader:
Markets usually fall out when one least expects it. Usually, in the past, when a market fell it was when everyone seemed jubilant and hopeful. In 2007, did you really expect for this mess to happen the way it did? I was a little bearish and I thought there would be a recession, but never did I ever believe the SPX would go to 666 and Obama would be elected to President. Not in my wildest dreams did I see Bear Stearns or Lehman going under.
Look at this chart:
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$NAA50R&p=D&yr=2&mn=0&dy=0&id=p64374114427
I dont believe Prechter is wrong. He is right in that something is about to happen. Will it happen in a few days or weeks I dont know, but it will happen very shortly.
There is no use trying to fight it, but there is also no use trying to trade it. Pullbacks usually happpen a lot faster then you think. The trend can change very fast and you wont know it wiping out all of your trading profits or making your losses increase even more.
Look at the above chart. When all the stocks were this high above their 50 day moving averages was it wise to get long the market?
Trade with the trend, but when there is the red sky in the morning then you take the sage old advice of taking warning. Watch the next few weeks carefully, but do not trade it. Also, when there is a pullback it wont happen just like that but there will be a series of pulls and pushes up and down...sideways...you wont know what to do but lose money.
Quote from retaildaytrader:
There is no use trying to fight it, but there is also no use trying to trade it. Pullbacks usually happpen a lot faster then you think. The trend can change very fast and you wont know it wiping out all of your trading profits or making your losses increase even more.
Quote from noddyboy:
OK -- I am 5x leveraged long. What is your position? In one post, you mention that the top is here, and in another post, you say that it is better to wait even months for confirmation, and in yet another post, you say that pullbacks happen very fast (is that suggesting that it is better to be early than late?)...
Quote from Landis82:
He initially went 50% short around SPX 1000 after the first week of August. He added another 50% around 1038.
He then called to go 200% short (without a stop-loss) around 1106 SPX in late November. On January 15th of this year, he called again to go 200% short. This time, the SPX was at 1136.
He and his in-house analyst (Steve Hochberg) have been downright horrible and in fact, have been terrific contrary indicators.
He might actually get it "right" at some point, but he's blown up most of his subscribers (and followers) given how many times they have watched their "shorts" get fried during this liquidity driven equity rally.
Feel free to read some of the most die-hard Elliott Wave blogs that border on religious fanaticism (for example, do a search for "Kenny's Technical Analysis" or Daneric's Elliott Wave).
They've (the blogs) have been a great CONTRARY indicator and now their unconditional love for Prechter has been tossed out the window as they are unanimously looking for a minor "B" wave pullback before yet another "C" wave rally to finish off the most recent zig-zag formation since the early February low.
This will have been the 3rd "Zig-Zag" wave pattern since the March 2008 low. It's been one A-B-C-X after another, and quite frankly has cost the Prechter "perma-bears" dearly.
One would have been far better off using simple classical technical analysis ( such as the NYSE A/D line ) and a host of moving averages to identify and confirm the trend. Even a basic 13/34 EMA crossover would have made you a TON of money over the past 12 months and kept you participating in the rally longer than most.
SPX: 1194.37 close