Elliot Waves, what are they!?

[sgbett]

Also mat, just to show what buy and hold really means, when price was up around 900 or so I suggested we'd go as low as 280. I was too optimistic in price, and I was too premature with time (predicted it would bottom midway through last year) but at the time its what I thought, and was within the magnitude of what has transpired

I believed we would correct this low, its still hurt like hell watching it happen, but thats what I signed up to when I decided that I was going to hold through it.

Percentage wise, it was easier than the drop from 32 back down to 2. Absolute dollar wise, nut sack crackingly more painful.

I mean show me a man who wouldn't be distraught at watching his $2000 stake turn into $300. ¡Aye Caramba!

Sticking to the plan though

[RyNinDaCleM]

The more a read about it the more I'm convinced its an art not a science. The important thing is I don't think its something that is entirely without merit. Whether you can use it predictively to trade? Maybe. Am I going to, certainly not

What I do know is there does seem to be a some logic behind the idea of impulsive moves.

I've seen various counts proposed for the bear market, and one of my favourites was the one where the ABC bearish correction coincides with large volume spike down a few days ago.

I also like the idea put forward about the throwover, my gut tells me this would be likely especially around 'big' (primary? sorry i don't know the terminology so well) waves. I think that the long bear market we went through was a pretty solid one.

So If we are starting a new 12345 main wave then we'll also be starting the smaller waves too, what we just saw, the impulsive bounce of what may prove to be the bottom, with our first exponential run up in a long long time (we've had ups but they have always looked like corrections over over sold positions in an otherwise downwardly moving market - this looked very different).

Then the sell off, which appears to be a normal correction event in a generally bullish trend.

It all looks very much like how elliot waves would unfold.

I guess what I'm saying is I think the next bull market is here, and the charts we are seeing look like they will make for some very convincing EW counts...

sgbett,
First let me start off saying that you are a different breed of HODLer. You are a voice of reason amongst a sea of HODL, the likes of which is enough to make me want to sell my forum account to the highest scammer bidder (I wouldn't think of it, but hopefully you get my drift).

Next, I'm glad that you see the merit in EW. It is indeed an art. It takes a special type of commitment to fully learn and properly apply EW. It's not so hard once you begin to "get it", it's the learning process that turns many off very early. I like to believe that I proved it's merit to the naysayers of TA but it seems memories and information retention run short in this forum.

@thread
I will agree with the posters that said you can't use EW as your sole strategy. 100% agreed! I preached that in my thread. EW is too ambiguous to use alone. That said, It is an EXTREMELY useful tool when used correctly. I don't care about politics, manipulation, new exchanges or regulation... It's all factored into the waves. EW doesn't see these things ahead of time, but it does offer invalidation points to quickly adapt to the changes in the market psychology. Psychology that is affected with every penny change that occurs in every wave, every day.

In example; USA regulates the everlasting shit outta Bitcoin, and all other exchanges decide to cooperate with the SEC/IRS/.gov and report all 'murican traders P/L. Traders flee the market in droves and causes my bullish count to end early. A whole wave early. What do I do now??? Well, the invalidation confirms that the 3 waver we just saw is now corrective and we head down. The duration is indeterminate with EW. The amplitude is unknown with EW. The only thing I can tell you is that the next move(s) are down. That is what EW does. It shows what is possible and impossible to happen next. It doesn't "predict what prices will do with precision in the following weeks or months". That isn't what it's for. EW doesn't give targets except that you can expect a price lower than X or higher than Y. That is where other tools come into play.

[sgbett]

Thanks Ry, I try and follow my own thing. Getting back to the original point of this thread - the EW idea just seemed to fit, on a gut instinct level, what I'd heard from the proponents of the idea. (also not planning on selling account ever - why the hell would you!?)

Sure, I couldn't draw you a chart saying this or that was gonna happen. In fact my post was just as bad as all the articles you see on CCN or whatever that basically just say "the price did this, the price did that, tomorrow it might go up or down". Mind blowing stuff!

Distilling from the crap I wrote earlier - what I said, was that in the long term the price will go up, in the short term it *might* still go down.

In my very limited understanding of EW

the *very* short term down is likely exhausted.
we never went below the start of the primary wave, so the road is open for the next impulse

and thats it! no chart. no targets. just a hunch based on the psychological ideas of EW.

price wise - i leave that to the experts

[JustAnotherSheep]

It doesn't "predict what prices will do with precision in the following weeks or months". That isn't what it's for. EW doesn't give targets except that you can expect a price lower than X or higher than Y. That is where other tools come into play.

Now I'm confused, especially since hearing this from an EW master such as yourself; surely EW provides targets? You showed me that in your thread, using the standard fibonacci ratios to accurately predict the length of waves, and I have since applied these methods (mostly) very successfully, having orders filled just at the turn of the tide based on fibonacci levels alone.

Granted, they are approximations and could prove false altogether if you are on the wrong track (or burn you if it under/overextends), and other signals such as indicator divergences compliment EW very well and rule out a lot of uncertainty, but if your count is valid the EW/Fib principles can be astoundingly accurate in giving price targets, more so than any other TA I know of.

[RyNinDaCleM]

It doesn't "predict what prices will do with precision in the following weeks or months". That isn't what it's for. EW doesn't give targets except that you can expect a price lower than X or higher than Y. That is where other tools come into play.

Now I'm confused, especially since hearing this from an EW master such as yourself; surely EW provides targets? You showed me that in your thread, using the standard fibonacci ratios to accurately predict the length of waves, and I have since applied these methods (mostly) very successfully, having orders filled just at the turn of the tide based on fibonacci levels alone.

Granted, they are approximations and could prove false altogether if you are on the wrong track (or burn you if it under/overextends), and other signals such as indicator divergences compliment EW very well and rule out a lot of uncertainty, but if your count is valid the EW/Fib principles can be astoundingly accurate in giving price targets, more so than any other TA I know of.

You just answered your own question!
It's the fibo that determines targets not EW itself. This falls in the "other tools" category that I spoke of in my post. Granted the specific point within a count is what determines the fibo ratio to base your predictions on, but still isn't the EW making the targets.

[JustAnotherSheep]

It doesn't "predict what prices will do with precision in the following weeks or months". That isn't what it's for. EW doesn't give targets except that you can expect a price lower than X or higher than Y. That is where other tools come into play.

Now I'm confused, especially since hearing this from an EW master such as yourself; surely EW provides targets? You showed me that in your thread, using the standard fibonacci ratios to accurately predict the length of waves, and I have since applied these methods (mostly) very successfully, having orders filled just at the turn of the tide based on fibonacci levels alone.

Granted, they are approximations and could prove false altogether if you are on the wrong track (or burn you if it under/overextends), and other signals such as indicator divergences compliment EW very well and rule out a lot of uncertainty, but if your count is valid the EW/Fib principles can be astoundingly accurate in giving price targets, more so than any other TA I know of.

You just answered your own question!
It's the fibo that determines targets not EW itself. This falls in the "other tools" category that I spoke of in my post. Granted the specific point within a count is what determines the fibo ratio to base your predictions on, but still isn't the EW making the targets.

Ah, fair enough. I always assumed the fibo was an integral part of EW, since EW itself seems fundamentally fibonacci structured (i.e., 3 corrective waves, 5 impulse, together they make 8, 13 subwaves within a 5-3-5 ABC, 21 subwaves within a full impulse cycle etc, all fibonacci numbers).

But maybe fib projections specifically are not part of textbook EW, wouldn't know since most of what I learnt is from watching you, chessnut and others