BULLS ON DEFENSE

BULLS FUMBLE - First-Down - BEARS
The near 20% decline from peak to trough in the October 2007 - January 2008 period, marked a potentially devastating turnover for Bulls. After throwing a near interception back in August, Bulls held steady, recovered, then fumbled critically at the October ‘07 highs.

Bears handily took possession thereafter, and have scored an undeniable first-down with the lows hit in January. Despite the aid of statist intervention along with surety of more where that came from, the Bullish contingent finds itself in the very rare and awkward position of playing defense.

Not without a fight
Though Bears may have scored a first-down, they are not very far along in advancing their ultimate campaign. It is likely they are still at their own 10-yard line - with a gargantuan 90-yard battle to win for a touch-down bottom to victory. Not only do Bulls still maintain mountains of steroidal-muscle and influence over the grid-iron at large, but they also have a formidable army of fans and officials working overtime to skew favor back to their collective multi-generational interests. On the other hand, it will be interesting to see the resultant outcome of official’s attempts to reflate what has yet to be adequately deflated.



As the above page extraction from Elliott Wave Technology’s Interim Monthly Forecast clearly reflects, the time for pro-active traders and investors to have gotten defensive was in the summer and fall of 2007. Going forward, participants may get second chance to get defensive at higher levels, or it may also turn out such that the bullish contingent somehow prevails – prompting us to lift our currently defensive posture.

Gaming the System with Options and Futures
Short-term leveraged trading is a highly speculative endeavor that entails significant levels of risk along with extraordinary levels of reward. To prevail in such an arena, one must not only adopt and stick with a winning discipline – but one must also accept that taking ones share of managed losses is a basic element of such engagement.

Below is graphic summary of previous week’s short-term trade-triggers identified via Elliott Wave Technology’s Near Term Outlook .



Elliott Wave Technology’s short-term market forecasts provide an outstanding roadmap of the dynamic price action landscape five days per week. The Near Term Outlook provides an excellent platform from which speculative short-term traders may better execute their strategies, mitigate risk, and maximize profits.

Short-Term Trading Environment: Week ending 15-Feb.
Ironically, the faster markets traverse amid their expanded daily ranges, the slower the larger degree wave counts take to unfold. As the stakes get higher, the premiums and risk to participate in these moves rises accordingly – and so do the rewards.

Re-Capping last week’s trading points:
Following the mayhem and hi-jinks incited by the crisis intervention and emergency rate-cuts some three weeks ago, markets have settled down – albeit in a much larger, more volatile version of its former self.

Sparing the blow-by-blow details of the previous two weeks, our non-discretionary short-term trading discipline has captured over 500 points in the Dow in the week past, recovering most all of the losses experienced earlier in the month.



THE BROAD MARKET UPDATE
We are going to begin this broad market outlook from the value perspective of Gold - one of the last remaining stable benchmarks of equal weight and measure. The chart below translates the value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average when measured against the Gold value.





Should one have interest in acquiring access to our long-term technical analysis and/or utilizing our proprietary short-term market landscapes, we invite you to visit our web-site for more information.

For immediate access to our broad market coverage in all time-horizons, one may subscribe directly to the Near Term Outlook which includes our Global Millennium Wave Quarterly reports, Interim Monthly Forecasts, and ongoing coverage of the short-term Dow, S&P, and NDX five-days-per-week, while issuing near-term updates for the US Dollar, Gold, Crude Oil, and the HUI two times per week.

Trade Better / Invest Smarter…
Joseph Russo
Publisher & Chief Market Analyst
ELLIOTT WAVE TECHNOLOGY

Read More ->>

HIGH-JINKS, MAYHEM, and HOUSE-CLEANING

2/3/2008

Free-Market Dynamics vs. Statist Intervention
In this particular round (likely the start of the 15th), one may assume that at present, the round is even on points. Free Market Dynamics have scored in breaching some minor structural under-pinning’s of the artificially-engineered perennial Bull - and the Statists have scored in response - thus far placing a perceived “floor” against the free markets natural propensity to adequately cleanse abuse and excess.

House Cleaning
Most are familiar with, and fully grasp the notion that in order for a gaming enterprise to maintain profitability, the “House” must always have a profit advantage. This simple concept is no different for the various market exchanges. The “House” must be profitable and prevail in the facilitation of open exchange. If it fails in this endeavor - the House will inevitably collapse, thus rendering no venue for trade – game-over.

The periodic wild price swings, which are most blatantly observed post FOMC announcements, provide a most opportune time for exchanges to “clean-house” as it were. Participants of either bullish or bearish persuasion are pounded out of their speculative positions, and punished by way of sharp trading losses. As the “house” mops up profit, it concurrently achieves the task of shaking out the largest portion of short-term speculators of every stripe.

Long-Term Analysis / Short-Term Queues
Apart from the inherent propensity and survival-of-the-fittest need for regular house-cleaning, short-term queues not only remain an essential element to the frequent speculator – but in addition, play a useful role in the maintenance and hedging of longer-term positions.

Following this week’s short-term trading summary and weekly overview, we will provide a sample of our long-term analysis from across the pond. Elliott Wave Technology’s illustration of the German DAX shall provide example of how maintaining a handle on long-range perspectives can assist both traders and investors alike.

Short-Term Trading Environment: Week ending 1-Feb.
Highlighted by Wednesdays FOMC announcement and subsequent series of violent whipsaw reversals, last weeks trade was a futile but necessary exercise in strategic resolve - producing little if any productive short-term benefit.

Re-Capping last week’s trading points:
The week began with a classic “throw-under” from a typically bullish falling wedge pattern. Despite the tendency for a false “throw-under” effect, the un-biased mechanical nature of trading the price-action compelled us to sell the breach nonetheless. Profits on such efforts were short-lived, and ultimately stopped for a loss.

Just four 30-minute bars off Mondays weak open; we began hitting a succession of elected long positions, re-situating our short-term trading posture on the right side of the market. All of these long positions went on to achieving their upside price targets.

By Tuesday, equity markets were once again in “levitation-mode,” awaiting announcement of the highly anticipated rate-cut stimulus. Those with experience were likely cognizant of their “sitting-duck” status relative to the impending melee following the public FOMC announcement.

Though appropriate for traders to stand aside amid the mayhem generally associated with FED meetings, we intentionally “trade-through” such noise. In doing so, and despite the added risks, we purposefully maintain a constant mechanical disconnect from all such builds of pent-up emotion and second guessing.

Ignoring discretion, instincts, or individual judgments does not guarantee profits – in fact, nothing does. At times, such instincts will pay off handsomely, and at others – be proven totally wrong. In the end however, monitoring all price-action triggers and trade signals generated by our studies, allows us to record and reflect upon the practical utility and real-world results of steadily applying consistent disciplines throughout all market conditions – win, lose, or draw.

Shortly following Wednesday’s public intervention announcement, with high-jinks in full gear, equities spiked sharply higher, and then suddenly collapsed into the close.

Thursday’s open was received with some downside follow-through, only to once again – reverse sharply higher - and remain in a generally sustained rising posture throughout the close of trade on Friday.

Amid a highly unstable, artificially supported price-action dynamic, we continue to engage markets with our usual resolve. Last week, such discipline produced a total of 9 short-term trades. Three profitable buy-side trades, five losses on the sell-side, and one aggressive long position that remains open.

Although clients are free to exercise individual discretion and instinct in selecting positions, it is our job to track proprietary strategy mechanically, based exclusively on the price-action, omitting all discretionary selection-bias surrounding pending news, pattern tendencies, or events.

On balance, January was an enormously profitable month; however we concluded its final week of trade virtually flat, with a net capture of just 12-points in the Dow.

Below is graphic summary of this week’s rather challenging trade-triggers identified via Elliott Wave Technology’s Near Term Outlook .



Should one have interest in acquiring access to our long-term technical analysis and/or utilizing our proprietary short-term market landscapes, we invite you to visit our web-site for more information.

For immediate access to our broad market coverage in all time-horizons, one may subscribe directly to the Near Term Outlook which includes our Global Millennium Wave Quarterly reports, Interim Monthly Forecasts, and ongoing coverage of the short-term Dow, S&P, and NDX five-days-per-week, while issuing near-term updates for the US Dollar, Gold, Crude Oil, and the HUI two times per week.

Trade Better / Invest Smarter…
Joseph Russo
Publisher & Chief Market Analyst
ELLIOTT WAVE TECHNOLOGY

Read More ->>

ORCHESTRATING A BOTTOM?

1/27/2008

A Work in Progress
Well, it is blatantly obvious that the (PPT) plunge protection team, presidents working group – or whatever they call themselves - found it necessary to intervene in the free-market in attempt to orchestrate a bottom.

Where are these guys when markets are a boiling-pot of unsustainable parabolic animal spirit? We suspect during such episodes, they are patting themselves on the back for planting the seeds for such bullish orgies.

Massive Undertaking / Will it be Different this Time
Might the inordinately early rescue efforts (which began pre-Dow 14K, in August of ’07) be telling of the sheer size and scope that this particular bail-out requires?

This alone, may suggest that any short-term temporary political stimulus (even alongside the redundancy of emergency monetary policy interventions) may do little to mitigate what is quite plausibly a much longer-term systemic malady.

When does Change become Revolution
Given that both Democrats and Republicans are in general agreement (prompting both to mount strong campaign platforms of “change”) that a critical portion of our government is fundamentally broken, we wonder how each candidate would define accomplishing “true-change” without radical consequence? Perhaps this may be why (R) Ron Paul is being ignored like the plague by his opponents and mainstream media alike.

In our view, the century for tweaking status quo paradigms has past. The 21st century demands a bold new sustainable vision of truth, preservation, prosperity, and security. Anything less equates to re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

We suspect change-denied, becomes revolution when a failing government’s inevitable last band-aid-fix and race-against-time falls terribly short - prompting masses of regional populations toward revolt, and general civil unrest as a result of acute and sustained levels of economic pain and hardship.

Following this week’s short-term trading summary, we will provide an update of our big-picture overview to monitor just how well the powers-that-be are executing their efforts to incite and orchestrate a perceived bottom.

Trading amid Intervention
How should traders and prudent speculators deal with massive government interventions in the supposed free-markets? Should they immediately get-long the intervention bandwagon, or should they stand pat on shorts, in attempt to fade the omnipotent fed?

In our view, the answer is none-of-the-above. Despite exerted efforts to manipulate markets, the short-answer is to simply trade the price-action as it is presented – contrived, fraudulent, or otherwise.

Short-Term Trading Environment: Week ending 25-Jan.
Last week’s trade was frantic, excessive, and extremely volatile. The highlight was Wednesday’s 600-point daily range-reversal off a retest of Tuesday’s lows. We warned traders in advance to anticipate potential for larger drawdowns and the likelihood of larger potential losses amid the ongoing melee.

Re-Capping last week’s trading points:
It was apparent on Monday’s market Holiday that trade would open the shortened week with a significant decline.

Though markets were likely on path to putting in a near-term bottom on their own, the emergency intervention efforts simply sealed the deal, and set the stage for Wednesday’s deep re-test and hyper-reversal to the upside.

The Near Term Outlook already had sell-side positions in place from the previous week, many of which achieved downside price target objectives amid Tuesdays sell-off.

We had also been anticipating and actively probing for a near-term low. Tuesday was no exception, as buy-side probes were quantified per our evening report posted the previous Friday.

Yes indeed, we faded the initial intervention rally on Tuesday to capture 300-pts of intraday profit near Wednesday’s lows, while our longer time-frame buy-probes off bottom continued un-stopped.

The mega-reversal rally on Wednesday also triggered at least two additional short-term long-positions, one of which has already reached a rather profitable price objective.

By Thursday, we were back in what appeared to be a business-as-usual “levitation” mode, which often follows major price spikes, especially when fostered and mandated by “the fed.”

Ignoring such political acrobatics, our discipline called for a short-term sell-side position which was indeed stopped for a loss on Friday’s marginal new high.

With our usual resolve, the follow-through high on Friday open was also faded with three separate sell-side trade-signals – two of which have already achieved their downside price objectives on sustained weakness through the close of the week’s final session.

All said and done, we grabbed well over 1300 points from the Dow by week’s end - with one long and two short positions still actively working.

Below is graphic summary of this week’s trade-triggers identified via Elliott Wave Technology’s Near Term Outlook.



Should one have interest in acquiring access to our long-term technical analysis and/or utilizing our proprietary short-term market landscapes, we invite you to visit our web-site for more information.

For immediate access to our broad market coverage in all time-horizons, one may subscribe directly to the Near Term Outlook which includes our Global Millennium Wave Quarterly reports, Interim Monthly Forecasts, and ongoing coverage of the short-term Dow, S&P, and NDX five-days-per-week, while issuing near-term updates for the US Dollar, Gold, Crude Oil, and the HUI two times per week.

Trade Better / Invest Smarter…
Joseph Russo
Publisher & Chief Market Analyst
ELLIOTT WAVE TECHNOLOGY

Read More ->>