Martin Armstrong Discussion

[Strike Eagle 26]

Strike Eagle
Just trying to my head around this, the fact that the Dow elected 2 bearish reversals, major and minor is of less consequence since it penetrated 26212 and closed above ? I guess if I had known the reversals of the Nasdaq and S&P I would've expected the move today, unfortunately I only have the Dow subscription.
The daily GNW of the Dow today seems not of much use when it contradicts the bullish closes of all the indices as you described.
Do you follow past elected reversals for any length of time or once elected they're done?

Thanks for your explanations

Yes exactly seeing the market penetrate a reversal and close above usually indicates a move in the opposite direction. directional changes tend to be strong moves in a certain direction so the Dow really needed to at least elect that minor to suggest it goes down further.  Do not expect absolute precision with an index regarding the reversals the Dow did come close to its next major daily bearish. At that time the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were testing their major daily bearish reversals with many more reversals just below indicating strong levels of support.

 
It really is the reversal system first, then the array and last is the GMW which is usually wrong especially when trading the reversals in reverse. The GMW is only pattern recognition nothing more.  With the GMW it is more accurate on the longer term trends than the shorter term so monthly and up.

elected Reversals can still provide support or resistance at times but have ultimately have lost their ability to provide a buy or sell signal so essentially they are done once elected.

 We came close to the next bullish reversal 26535 on the Dow so I suspect the directional change may be to the downside but cannot be sure this time since due to a major daily bullish reversal being elected.

[Thekees]

key reversal points by Armstrong
"Most of the time when one level is penetrated, the market price activity will continue to the next available Reversal."
"If you penetrate a reversal and then FAIL to elect it, this typically signal a move back in the opposite direction."

Minor reversals are certainly valid but can be overpowered by majors. the Dow tested and penetrated its minor daily bearish reversal yesterday at 26212 and came close to the next major bearish but did not elect it and the array showed a directional change today(Dow,Nasdaq) the Nasdaq and S&P 500 came close to their daily bearish reversals but did not elect them so there was only one direction the market could go and that was up.

I find that directional changes are very accurate and usually indicates that whatever direction we are in should reverse but this will be confirmed/denied by the reversals. we had a directional change in gold, silver and crude today where crude on Thursday elected 4 bearish reversals(minors) penetrated the 5th and closed right on it which is not an election confirming the directional change was to the upside. Silver penetrated its 4th daily
 bearish reversal(minor) on Thursday and tested the 5th daily bearish reversal but for the close electing none indicating the directional change was to the upside.

 If there are big gaps between reversals major to minor those levels of support and resistance tend to be quite strong and you can buy against them with more confidence.


 we have a directional change on the Dow and the S&P 500 for Monday the 6th

"If you penetrate a reversal and then FAIL to elect it, this typically signal a move back in the opposite direction."

For what I have seen this is not the case, especially when there are Directional changes or Panic cycles. What I have seen happen is that price will penetrate 2 or 3 reversal but only 1 of them and the next day the other reversals will be elected. So have a look at the currencies, they are very precise and when a reversal holds it will often be within a few pips, if it penetrates the reversal, in my experience, it means price is likely to continue even if the penetrated reversal is not elected that same day. As I mentioned before, Directional changes are usually present when this happens.

I don´t know why he wrote it because if you follow price and reversals you will quickly see that it is just not true, if price stops at a reversal within a few pips and there is a DC or a turning point that day/week whatever, that is when price will likely revers, as he always says, time is then up.

 

[etoimene]

It really is the reversal system first, then the array and last is the GMW which is usually wrong especially when trading the reversals in reverse.

I have seen at private blog on January 17th that  Time is #1, price is #2.
Also, Socrates manual states
"If the price reaches technical resistance as the next Turning Point arrives in time, but price has not yet reached the next Bullish Reversal, you would exit the position and take profit because its time had come."

[Strike Eagle 26]

It really is the reversal system first, then the array and last is the GMW which is usually wrong especially when trading the reversals in reverse.

I have seen at private blog on January 17th that  Time is #1, price is #2.
Also, Socrates manual states
"If the price reaches technical resistance as the next Turning Point arrives in time, but price has not yet reached the next Bullish Reversal, you would exit the position and take profit because its time had come."

I mean first on the basis of if a given reversal is elected

[etoimene]

Thanks for clarification!

[stockpile]

https://www.screencast.com/t/Z11xPBVcud

etoimene & Strike Eagle, thanks for the explantions. Re the intraday election of the Bullish Maj -it's no longer on the elected list, seems to have dropped off yesterday ?
So as of the 1st/May the DOw has elected 6 daily bearish reversals, 3 maj, 2 minor and one triple. The Dow penetrated 2nd last reversal and reversed 5 points from the last. Any thoughts, anyone regarding tomorrow's direction?

[stockpile]

5 weekly major bearish reversals on the board
1st @ 25372.25
2nd @ 25207.90

other 3 are mid to lower 24,000 area

[stockpile]

I'm curious about the 3x bear reversal from yesterday, supposed to be significant, offering up resistance so far

https://www.screencast.com/t/aHE2l2pN

[ediface]

Glad to find some discussion on this topic...I've subscribed to the pro version of the ask-socrates service since mid-February and am still trying to figure out the best way to use it for developing a trading strategy. So hoping to add some useful information and gain some knowledge from the discussion here.

To start with, I've got a Google sheet showing the performance of the weekly and monthly reversals of the assets I have access to.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZJ8y06rALN-1eUPX_1ZbAfJ4SPP1oM_LcMHg5fsLW_I/edit#gid=941090084

I have subscriptions to the DOW, V, WMT, and DIS and purchased snapshot reports for S&P 500, COST, and EUR.USD last week (haven't done the EUR.USD performance yet but unsurprisingly it's been all bearish)

Without any other signals the performance for these assets has performed admirably. As suggested, adding in the arrays for analysis should provide a significant increase in performance, as well. For example, the arrays for the DOW, WMT, and V were all pointing to May on the monthly level and 5/6 on the weekly level as being the strongest target with directional changes. As a comparison, COST and DIS both have directional changes for May, however, this month is not the strongest target for either of those assets. You can see the performance since the close 5/3 on the 2nd tab in the sheet. As of the close yesterday (5/10) DIS and COST have held up better than the other 4. So even though the reversals were firing off for SPY, DIS and WMT with all the directional changes in the arrays they did not look like promising trades so I held off on opening any positions.

So my strategy at this point is to just go with the inverse ETF on the DOW (SDOW) since we failed to elect the weekly and monthly reversals in the 26600-26700 before the directional changes hit and either wait for bearish reversals to fire off for any of these assets or just hold until we approach a bottom. I'm hoping someone can shed some light on what the arrays are indicating and let me know if my analysis makes sense:

Monthly Data:
May was a directional change and June is our next turning point so we should see a decline into June with the opposite into July which is a panic cycle month. We then see the opposite trend into September which is the strongest target. Based on that I would expect to look for an exit point in June using the weekly arrays unless we get a stronger correction and the weekly bearish reversals start getting elected. If that's the case then the July panic cycle might start to looks like an outside reversal to the upside (i think only electing bearish reversals would indicate that???) so holding on for a bottom in July would then make sense. The weekly arrays should provide what is needed to determine those moves...

Weekly Data:
The commentary states: "there is a chance of a decline moving into the week of April 29th with the opposite trend thereafter into the week of May 20th" and then "The strongest target in the Weekly array is the week of June 3rd for a turning point ahead, at least on a closing basis. It does appear we have a choppy period starting the week of May 20th until the week of June 3rd with each target producing the opposite direction for that 3-week period."

I'm having a lot more trouble with this array. Going into this week the arrays looked pretty clear that we were approaching the end of this rally. But when I look at the most current version of the arrays the arrays and write-up don't seem to be lining up with what I see when I just look at the array and what has happened in the market to this point. There are directional changes this week (5/6) and next week (5/13). This week's directional change was pretty clear and initially I expected a decline to continue at least into the next turning point (5/20) and potentially through the week of 6/3 which is the strongest target. But there is a directional change for next week and the write-up indicates a rally into 5/20 so that really muddies the water. Maybe that's because the water is muddy at this point since the monthly and weekly arrays are not showing the same trend but I just don't have enough experience with the arrays to make that determination.

Any thoughts or insights are much appreciated.

[stockpile]

ediface

I agree looking forward things get muddy looking at monthly array’s and trying to extrapolate forward, it’s very frustrating and adding to that would be Martin’s blogs during selloffs. He tends to get worked up talking about major support areas so far from price. The Dec low comes to mind, the only number I should’ve cared about was 21,600.
I subscribed to PRO simply to have daily reversals for longer term trade entry’s and exits, waiting for weekly confirmation in the DOW (should it be elected) would put me short roughly 1400 points from the highs.
I bought SDOW on May 1st  the first Maj daily elected bearish (in a while), subsequently we’ve had 3 minors, 2 additional majors plus the triple on the 7th.  Looking forward I’m interested in the weekly reversals and as you mentioned the week of June 3rd , nothing else. I’m just trying to keep it simple for my own sake.

bikefront

Using daily reversals for day trading, I don’t see it, then again I’m not so hot at small time frames. The reversals on the DOW are close at times to actual pivots but mostly would require very large stops, perhaps swing trades using options would be better.

Generally I’m finding these markets frustrating having not traded for a while, low volatility for the most part, low volumes and the incessant buying of any low, there’s no question in my mind about the extent of new money coming in as Martin describes.

[ediface]

I agree looking forward things get muddy looking at monthly array’s and trying to extrapolate forward,

Well that good it's not just me then 

it’s very frustrating and adding to that would be Martin’s blogs during selloffs. He tends to get worked up talking about major support areas so far from price. The Dec low comes to mind, the only number I should’ve cared about was 21,600.

Yeah, I've gotten confused a number of times on the blog because he seems to talk about different time units within the same conversation. But having access to the data myself to parse through has made a world of difference. The two most obvious things that Socrates was pointing to in the DOW were a pause in trend in February which the weekly and daily arrays pinpointed to 2/25 and picked the high to the day, and then this week. It did a really good job with WMT, too. It was bobbing between $97 and $100 for two months and then early April a weekly bullish hit and it took off. As I said, though, I haven't really built up enough confidence in interpreting the data for signals or come up with a great trading strategy yet (especially an exit strategy) so it hasn't benefited me as much as I would have liked. Position trading on the daily reversals doesn't seem to be a great option when they are often close together but your strategy of using them for entry/exit points for longer term trades makes a lot of sense.

[ediface]

I've only gone back a few pages in the thread so far, but one of the things I wanted to mention that was talked about was essentially if MA was a charlatan. Having read his blog since 2015 there have been a number of long-term predictions that have been amazingly accurate. I'll try to go back and find the posts where he made the predictions as I think I probably have a number of them saved. But for now the ones I remember that stand out the most were:

• The collapse in the Euro being put off because it held 1.06 in 2016
• The bottom in oil February 2016
• Gold needs to close a month above $1365 to be bullish again
• In 2016: The DOW would need to close a month above $18500 before making a run to $23000
• In 2017: The DOW would need to close a month above $23500 before making a run to the $26K-$28K range
• January 2018: Socrates was strongly warning that the rally was done

These were all predictions based on Socrates reversals and not MA's opinion and they were all measurable and correct. There are plenty of other things like the rise in 3rd parties winning, independence movements, BREXIT, and Trump that are pretty much verifiable, as well. Essentially, there is enough here that makes it clear that if he says something is going to happen at the very minimum it is worth the time to investigate.

So I'm fairly confident from what he's said that we will see the trade of a lifetime in the next few years. I'm pretty sure we'll see that unfold as soon as we start electing the next weekly and bullish reversals in the DOW in the 26600-26700 area. We've already retested that area twice now and most often it's the third time that we see the follow through.

[stockpile]

ediface

I’m aware of the discontent.

 I have little doubt we’re moving much higher, I sold my long term longs late 2018 and waiting, I suspect others may in the same position. Looking at the Dec lows and where we’re at today then buying a weekly or monthly bullish reversal at the dead highs is giving me nausea.
Anyway we’ll see what next week brings, have a good weekend.

[ediface]

Anyone using the Private Blog or Socrates Pro, please post trades in real time...
...and use only Reversal Elections on the Weekly+ timeframe.

Exactly why I have the Google sheet that I will continue to maintain. Trades use the open price the day after a reversal is elected and will sell when a reversal in the opposite direction is elected. If anyone has any other data points for me I'd be more than happy to add them to the sheet. I will likely be purchasing some further snapshot reports over the weekend and will enter that data, as well. The Nasdaq, Hang Seng, Shanghai, Gold, Oil and some individual stocks are on the top of my list. As of the close today there were no further bullish or bearish reversals on the weekly level for the DOW, S&P 500, COST, DIS, V, or WMT.

[Alex4711]

Interesting thread. my humble contribution to Bitcoin is the following:

01.04.2019 weekly bullish:4236.39: closing: 4904.12  ->  elected
23.04.2019 weekly bullish:5559.27: closing  5243.29   ->  elected
03.05.2019 weekly bullish:6418.76: closing  6438.7     ->  elected

So the current Bitcoin Rally was predicted and confirmed.

[Alex4711]

Corrected (April 27th)

01.04.2019 weekly bullish:4236.39: closing: 4904.12  ->  elected
27.04.2019 weekly bullish:5559.27: closing  5599       ->  elected
03.05.2019 weekly bullish:6418.76: closing  6438.7    ->  elected

Closing means friday close quote according to tradingview

[Alex4711]

I see the point, however there are some ethical concerns to publish data available only via a subscription basis. However I can tell you my business case, that I think is easily replicable:

The Plus Membership costs 55$ per month and with this level I can purchase any detailed report for 2 credits. 10 Credits costs 27 USD, thus a detailed report costs 5.4 USD. You will need the Detailed report to get the reversals (Arrays are not included, however turning points with monthly accuracy are mentioned together with a variety of support /resistance levels).  Credits can get cheaper if purchased via bulk, but for me the 27 USD is a reasonable investment. And yes, I traded such reversals (with exception of yesterday, bad decision to wait till today, would have been a profit simply  over night)

Depending on the charts, it may not be necessary to purchase every weekly report, so we are talking about around 60-70 USD (55 $+ some reports). You will need just one trade earning this amount to break-even, the rest is pure profit. And purchasing reports on single markets allow me also to take a closer look to other markets as well.

Critic point of the Plus Membership is that the detailed reports included in that level are at least for me quite useless as I do not trade such markets (Global MSCI All country World $ index, Global MSCI Emerging Markets $ Index, Global MSCI $ index, Global S&P Global 100 Index, Global S&P Global 1200 Index).

So the Plus membership would make sense only by purchasing reports on top, or investing 15$ additionally to get a regular detailed report of one market.

The reversals are only available in the detailed reports, not in the summary one. And it is not recommended to trade only based on GMW comments only.

[Alex4711]

Yes, BIDU looks quite bearisch. In the GWT is everything red.  I think the market is expecting negative earnings on Thursday, the revisions are negative. On the other side it was the 5th bearish day in row, a small reaction would not be surprising.

[psp777]

I'm a pro subscriber for a few months now. I have been trading for decades and feel very comfortable with Technical Analysis. By no means is Socrates a system that allows you to get clear buy/ sell signals. Regarding the reversals I have been tracking the DOW closely for the past few month with socrates. Day trading based off of the daily reversals is extremely difficult. The latest volatility in the market is making this interesting too. On May 7th, for example, 5 daily reversals were elected. One was a major bearish reversal and two were double reversals. Interesting to note, we closed in the green on May 8th.

MA says to watch the weekly reversals. The problem is, in my opinion, there is about a 5.5% gap between them at the moment. So, as a result I am waiting in cash. Why guess? Might as well flip a coin. The private blog says that we have not elected an important key bullish weekly above the current highs and as a result we may test the Dec lows, but make a higher low at 23,200 area or so. This is about a 15+% move...so unless you are buying or shorting at the key levels with tight stops it is best to wait this out in cash. This consolidation or chop with a 15% range could be devastating to a larger account.

May was a turning point. But, did we just witness the full extent of the turn? How low do we go? What if we have a cycle inversion as we did in April when Armstrong called a potential temp top (wrong call on the private blog), What if global capital flows continue into the US equity markets? A lot of unknowns. This is leading to some frustration with Socrates subscribers.

I honestly believe that Armstrong has a much more detailed version of his Socrates program than what the public has access to. I feel the current version is a very superficial version. BTW, the global market watch is rearview mirror looking. Not that helpful for actively trading in my opinion. "New pattern forming" LOL. There are many other indicators than can give confirmation of a direction. Something as simple as moving averages is one small example.

Anyways, I am curious to see where this all leads. I believe there is value in Socrates (yet a bit frustrated at times), extreme value in the private blog, and value with a community like this to share opinions about Socrates. Again, if it was as simple as a green or red arrow on the screen when Socrates made the call, you wouldn't be hearing from anyone.

All the best,
PSP

[s29]

I'm a pro subscriber for a few months now. I have been trading for decades and feel very comfortable with Technical Analysis. By no means is Socrates a system that allows you to get clear buy/ sell signals. Regarding the reversals I have been tracking the DOW closely for the past few month with socrates. Day trading based off of the daily reversals is extremely difficult. The latest volatility in the market is making this interesting too. On May 7th, for example, 5 daily reversals were elected. One was a major bearish reversal and two were double reversals. Interesting to note, we closed in the green on May 8th.

MA says to watch the weekly reversals. The problem is, in my opinion, there is about a 5.5% gap between them at the moment. So, as a result I am waiting in cash. Why guess? Might as well flip a coin. The private blog says that we have not elected an important key bullish weekly above the current highs and as a result we may test the Dec lows, but make a higher low at 23,200 area or so. This is about a 15+% move...so unless you are buying or shorting at the key levels with tight stops it is best to wait this out in cash. This consolidation or chop with a 15% range could be devastating to a larger account.

May was a turning point. But, did we just witness the full extent of the turn? How low do we go? What if we have a cycle inversion as we did in April when Armstrong called a potential temp top (wrong call on the private blog), What if global capital flows continue into the US equity markets? A lot of unknowns. This is leading to some frustration with Socrates subscribers.

I honestly believe that Armstrong has a much more detailed version of his Socrates program than what the public has access to. I feel the current version is a very superficial version. BTW, the global market watch is rearview mirror looking. Not that helpful for actively trading in my opinion. "New pattern forming" LOL. There are many other indicators than can give confirmation of a direction. Something as simple as moving averages is one small example.

Anyways, I am curious to see where this all leads. I believe there is value in Socrates (yet a bit frustrated at times), extreme value in the private blog, and value with a community like this to share opinions about Socrates. Again, if it was as simple as a green or red arrow on the screen when Socrates made the call, you wouldn't be hearing from anyone.

All the best,
PSP

  Armstrong
Nice analysis.

As the market goes down, so usually does sentiment. So when the shit is going down, and finally it elects bearish reversals, sentiment is usually already so bad you can have these sharp rallies. That's why trading with Armstrong's reversals is so difficult and mostly behind the curve. Shorting is very dangerous if the market already gone down quite a lot.

Armstrong has been gossiping about retesting the December lows since the beginning of January. Missed the rally completely, then when the indices started to elect weekly bullish reversals, most of the rally was already getting out of steam and it was becoming more vurnable to a correction anyways. Again, what a behind the curve method and rearview mirror bullshit.

May was a turning point. But, did we just witness the full extent of the turn? How low do we go?

May maybe not over yet, but so far nothing special happened. 2.5% below the all time high despite no Trade Deal, threatening 25% tarriffs and even executing the 25% tariffs. Markets usually correct 4 to 10% after a 25% run.