Using Moving Averages with Elliott Wave Analysis

Moving Averages and the Wave Principle
Improve your Elliott wave pattern identification skills with this lesson from Jeffrey Kennedy 

By Elliott Wave International

Moving averages are one of the most widely-used methods of technical analysis because they are simple to use, and they work. Among Elliott wave traders, you will likely find an especially high percentage of investors and traders who incorporate moving averages into their Wave analysis.

Here's why: you can use moving averages to identify Elliott waves.

Senior Analyst Jeffrey Kennedy knows how to take complex trading methods and teach them in a way you can immediately understand and apply -- his step-by-step tutorials are beneficial to traders at any level of experience. Jeffrey is also well-known for combining ancillary technical tools to strengthen his Elliott wave analysis.

The following lesson provides a powerful example of how moving averages can strengthen your ability to identify Elliott Patterns. It is excerpted from Jeffrey's free 10-page eBook, How You Can Find High-Probability Trading Opportunities Using Moving Averages. (Click here to get your copy of this free eBook now.)

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If you're new to the Wave Principle, I recommend using a moving average to get you started, and the reason why is that a moving average overlaid on a price chart will help train your eye to see developing Elliott wave patterns.
For an example of a schematic Elliott wave, look at the figure below:

If you've read The Elliott Wave Principle by Robert Prechter and A.J. Frost, you know that wave patterns are illustrated as line diagrams.
When you look at a real price chart rather than a schematic, the basic chart is typically an open-high-low-close price chart. Each price bar represents a single period and is illustrated by a vertical line with a small mark to the left and a small mark to the right as seen in the next figure:

The little lower line on the left-hand side of the vertical bar is the open; the little upper line on the right-hand side of the vertical line is the close; the top of the line is the day's high or that trading period's extreme; and the bottom of the line is that trading period's low.
Here's the thing: Whenever you're making the transition from looking at a textbook diagram to actually counting Elliott waves on a real price chart, it can be confusing to the eye. If you use a moving average, it will help you to see the wave pattern more easily.
Let me prove my case more thoroughly with this chart of Corn:

The blue line is an 8-period simple moving average of the close, which clearly shows that a five-wave decline has unfolded from the upper left-hand side of this price chart. With the aid of a moving average, the subdivisions within this selloff are more easily discernible than with the untrained naked eye.
Also, notice that the slope of the move up in wave 4 is shallow. This detail is important because one of the key characteristics of countertrend price action is that it moves slowly, thus its slope will be inherently more shallow than what one can expect to encounter when a motive wave is in force.

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Learn How to Trade the Highest Probability Opportunities: Moving Averages No matter what your level of experience in the markets, you'll be amazed at how quickly you can benefit when you include moving averages in your Elliott wave analysis. Now you can learn how to apply them to your trading and investing in this free 10-page eBook. Learn step-by-step how moving averages can help you find high-probability trading opportunities. Begin to improve your trading and investing with Moving Averages today! Download Your Free eBook Now >>

the Stock Market and the Fed

Elliott Wave: Fed Follows Market Yet Again

By Steve Hochberg and Pete Kendall

Back in December, we wrote an article titled "Interest Rates Win Again as Fed Follows Market."
In the piece, we noted that while most experts believe that central banks set interest rates, it's actually the other way around—the market leads, and the Fed follows.
We pointed out that the December rate hike followed increases in the six-month and three-month U.S. Treasury bill yields set by the market.
What happened with this week's Fed announcement? Well, you guessed it—the Fed simply followed the market yet again.

The chart above is an updated version of the one we showed in our last article. The red line is the U.S. Federal Funds rate, the yellow line is the rate on the 3-month U.S. T-bill and the green line is the rate on the 6-month U.S. T-bill. The latter two rates are freely-traded in the auction arena, while the former rate is set by the Fed.
Now observe the grey ellipses. Throughout 2017-2018, the rates on 3-and-6-month U.S. T-bills were rising steadily, pushing above the Fed Fund's rate. During the period shown on the graph, the Fed raised its interest rate six times, each time to keep up with the rising T-bill rates. The interest-rate market is the dog wagging the central-bank tail.
Now note what T-bill rates have been doing since November of last year; they've stopped rising. Rates have moved net-sideways, which was the market's way of signaling that the Fed would not raise the Fed Funds rate this week.
Too many investors and pundits obsess over whether the Fed will raise or lower the Fed Funds rate and what it all supposedly means. First, if you want to know what the Fed will or will not do, simply look at T-bills, as shown on the chart. Second, whatever their action, it doesn't matter because the Fed's interest-rate policy cannot force people to borrow.
See Chapter 3 of The Socionomic Theory of Finance for more evidence.

Improving Your Wave Analysis Skills

(Video) Gain Trading Confidence by Improving Your Wave Analysis Skills
A lesson from Elliott Wave International's Jeffrey Kennedy

By Elliott Wave International

How do you distinguish between a "good" Elliott wave count and a "bad" wave count?
In this lesson from our educational service for traders called Trader's Classroom, editor Jeffrey Kennedy walks you through the steps you should use to achieve a quality Elliott wave count.

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Get 6 Lessons to Help You Find Trading Opportunities in Any Market Analyst Jeffrey Kennedy is author of dozens of Elliott Wave International's educational products, and he is one of our most popular instructors. In these 6 lessons, Jeffrey utilizes several of his favorite tools to show you different ways to spot trading opportunities. The methods he uses can be applied across any liquid market and any time frame. Access your 6 free lessons now >>

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline (Video) Gain Trading Confidence by Improving Your Wave Analysis Skills. EWI is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

Fractals and the Stock Market

What Does a Fractal Look Like?
And What Does It Have to Do with the Stock Market? 
May 26, 2011

By Elliott Wave International

If the word 'fractal' comes up at all in conversation, that conversation is probably being held in a mathematics department. However, anyone who is interested in the Wave Principle and how it applies to the stock market may have stumbled across the phrase "robust fractal." If you want to know more about what it means in that context, here's an excerpt from Elliott Wave International's primer on fractals that explains the connection.

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Excerpted from The Human Social Experience Forms a Fractal
by Robert R. Prechter
In the 1930s, Ralph Nelson Elliott discovered that aggregate stock market prices trend and reverse in recognizable patterns. In a series of books and articles published from 1938 to 1946, he described the stock market as a fractal. A fractal is an object that is similarly shaped at different scales.
Although Elliott came to his conclusions fifty years before the new science of fractals blossomed, he took a step that current observers of natural processes have yet to take. He explained not only that the progress of the market was fractal in nature but discovered and described the component patterns. The patterns that Elliott discerned are repetitive in form but not necessarily in time or amplitude. Elliott isolated and defined a number of patterns, or "waves," that recur in market price data. He named and illustrated the patterns. He then described how they link together to form larger versions of themselves, how they in turn link to form the same patterns at the next larger size, and so on, producing a structured progression. He called this phenomenon The Wave Principle….
The Stock Market as a Robust Fractal
A classic example of a self-identical fractal is nested squares. One square is surrounded by eight squares of the same size, which forms a larger square, which is surrounded by eight squares of that larger size, and so on.
A classic example of an indefinite fractal is the line that delineates a seacoast. When viewed from space, a seacoast has a certain irregularity of contour. If we were to drop to ten miles above the earth, we would see only a portion of the seacoast, but the irregularity of contour of that portion would resemble that of the whole. From a hundred feet up in a balloon, the same thing would be true.

Scientists today recognize financial markets' price records as fractals, but they presume them to be of the indefinite variety. Elliott undertook a meticulous investigation of financial market behavior and found something different. He described the record of stock market prices as aspecifically patterned fractal yet with variations in its quantitative expression. I call this type of fractal, which has properties of both self-identical and indefinite fractals, a robust fractal. Robust fractals permeate life forms. Trees, for example, are branching robust fractals, as are animals, circulatory systems, bronchial systems and nervous systems. The stock market record belongs in the category of life forms since it is a product of human social interaction.
How Is the Stock Market Patterned?

Figure 1 shows Elliott's idea of how the stock market is patterned. If you study this depiction, you will see that each component, or "wave," within the overall structure subdivides in a specific way by one simple rule: If the wave is heading in the same direction as the wave of one larger degree, then it subdivides into five waves. If the wave is heading in the opposite direction as the wave of one larger degree, then it subdivides into three waves (or a variation). These are called motive and corrective waves, respectively. Each of these waves adheres to specific traits and tendencies of construction, as described in Elliott Wave Principle (1978).
Waves subdivide this way down to the smallest observable scale, and the entire process continues to develop larger and larger waves as time progresses. Each wave's degree may be identified numerically by relative size on a sort of social Richter scale.

Want to Know More About Fractals and the Stock Market? Then read the whole special report, called "The Human Social Experience Forms a Fractal." It's free of charge, so long as you are a member of Club EWI, which gives you access to many free reports that explain Elliott wave analysis and the Wave Principle.

One Week Left: Download Prechter's free 10-page market analysis

There’s only one week left to download Robert Prechter’s free 10-page market letter. Our friends at Elliott Wave International are featuring the free download through June 7.

The free issue, titled “A Deadly Bearish Big Picture,” contains recent research and market analysis that goes beyond the news headlines to give you urgent, independent market forecasts. Prechter’s market outlook has changed dramatically since February of 2009 when he informed hisElliott Wave Theorist subscribers to turn bullish.

The markets have turned more and more volatile by the day, with huge market swings spanning hundreds of points! It’s time to prepare yourself. 

Get your FREE copy of Prechter's latest research through June 7 -- Download the Theorist now.

the Many Signs Of Deflation

Bob Prechter Points Out The Many Signs Of Deflation
Yes, You Heard Us Right
April 29, 2010

By Elliott Wave International

Everywhere you look, the mainstream financial experts are pinning on their "WIN 2" buttons in a show of solidarity against what they see as the number one threat to the U.S. economy: Whip Inflation Now.
There's just one problem: They're primed to fight the wrong enemy. Fact is, despite ten rate cuts by the Federal Reserve Board to record low levels plus $13 trillion (and counting) in government bailout money over the past three years -- the Demand For and Availability Of credit is plunging. Without a borrower or lender, the massive supply of debt LOSES value, bringing down every exposed investment like one long, toppling row of dominoes.
This is the condition known as Deflation.
Bob Prechter uncovered more than a dozen "value depreciating" developments underway in the U.S. economy as the two main engines of credit expansion sputter: Banks and Consumers. Here's a preview of his findings contained the free report, The Most Important Investment Report You'll Read in 2010:

• A riveting chart of Treasury Holdings as a Percentage of US Chartered Bank Assets since 1952 shows how "safe" bank deposits really are. In short: today's banks are about 95% invested in mortgages via the purchase of federal agency securities. Unlike Treasuries, IOU's with homes as collateral have "tremendous potential" to fall in dollar value.
• Loan Availability to Small Businesses has fallen to the lowest level since the interest rate crises of 1980. In Bob Prechter's own words: "The means of debt repayment [via business growth] are evaporating, which implies further deflationary pressure within the banking system."
• An all-inclusive close-up of the Number Of Banks Tightening Their Lending Standards since 1997 has this message to impart: Since peaking in October 2008, lending restrictions have soared, thereby significantly reducing the overall credit supply.
• Both residential and commercial mortgages are plummeting as home/business owners walk away from their leases at an increasing rate.
• The major sources of bank revenue -- consumer credit and state taxes -- are plunging as more people opt to pay DOWN their debt. Also, a compelling chart of leveraged buyouts since 1995 shows a third catalyst for the credit binge -- private equity -- on the decline.

All that is just the beginning. For more information on the deflationary shift underway in the financial landscape, download Bob Prechter's free report, The Most Important Investment Report You'll Read in 2010. It contains 13 pages of commentary, riveting charts, and unparalleled insight into these urgent market matters.

Elliott Wave International (EWI) is the world's largest market forecasting firm. EWI's 20-plus analysts provide around-the-clock forecasts of every major market in the world via the internet and proprietary web systems like Reuters and Bloomberg. EWI's educational services include conferences, workshops, webinars, video tapes, special reports, books and one of the internet's richest free content programs, Club EWI.

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Elliott Wave Analysis Basics

EUR/USD: Often, Basic Elliott Wave Analysis Is All You Need

Watch this classic video from Elliott Wave International's Chief Currency Strategist, Jim Martens, to see how useful the basics of Elliott wave analysis can be. Jim explains how the same basic pattern that R.N. Elliott discovered back in the 1930s is often all you need to make informed market forecasts.
Then access Jim Marten's intraday and end-of-day Forex forecasts, completely free from Elliott Wave International. The independent market forecasting firm is offering free access (a $199 value) through February 10. Get your free Forex forecasts now.

Don't stop here! Get Jim Marten's intraday and end-of-day Forex forecasts FREE through February 10. Get your free Forex forecasts.

The Elliott Wave Principle

 The Elliott Wave Principle

In the 1930s, Ralph Nelson Elliott, a corporate accountant by profession, studied price movements in the financial markets and observed that certain patterns repeat themselves. He offered proof of his discovery by making astonishingly accurate stock market forecasts. What appears random and unrelated, Elliott said, will actually trace out a recognizable pattern once you learn what to look for. Elliott called his discovery "The Elliott Wave Principle," and its implications were huge. He had identified the common link that drives the trends in human affairs, from financial markets to fashion, from politics to popular culture.
Robert Prechter, Jr., president of Elliott Wave International, resurrected the Wave Principle from near obscurity in 1976 when he discovered the complete body of R.N. Elliott's work in the New York Library. Robert Prechter, Jr. and A.J. Frost published Elliott Wave Principle in 1978. The book received enthusiastic reviews and became a Wall Street bestseller. In Elliott Wave Principle, Prechter and Frost's forecast called for a roaring bull market in the 1980s, to be followed by a record bear market. Needless to say, knowledge of the Wave Principle among private and professional investors grew dramatically in the 1980s.
When investors and traders first discover the Elliott Wave Principle, there are several reactions:

• Disbelief – that markets are patterned and largely predictable by technical analysis alone
• Joyous “irrational exuberance” – at having found a “crystal ball” to foretell the future
• And finally the correct, and useful response – “Wow, here is a valuable new tool I should learn to use.”

Just like any system or structure found in nature, the closer you look at wave patterns, the more structured complexity you see. It is structured, because nature’s patterns build on themselves, creating similar forms at progressively larger sizes. You can see these fractal patterns in botany, geography, physiology, and the things humans create, like roads, residential subdivisions… and – as recent discoveries have confirmed – in market prices. 
Natural systems, including Elliott wave patterns in market charts, “grow” through time, and their forms are defined by interruptions to that growth.
Here's what is meant by that. When your hands formed in the womb, they first looked like round paddles growing equally in all directions. Then, in the places between your fingers, cells ceased growing or died, and growth was directed to the five digits. This structured progress and regress is essential to all forms of growth. That this “punctuated growth” appears in market data is only natural – as Robert Prechter, Jr., the world's foremost Elliott wave expert and president of Elliott Wave International, says, “Everything that thrives must have setbacks.”
The first step in Elliott wave analysis is identifying patterns in market prices. At their core, wave patterns are simple; there are only two of them: “impulse waves,” and “corrective waves.”
Impulse waves are composed of five sub-waves and move in the same direction as the trend of the next larger size (labeled as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Impulse waves are called so because they powerfully impel the market.
A corrective wave follows, composed of three sub-waves, and it moves against the trend of the next larger size (labeled as a, b, c). Corrective waves accomplish only a partial retracement, or "correction," of the progress achieved by any preceding impulse wave.
As the figure to the right shows, one complete Elliott wave consists of eight waves and two phases: five-wave impulse phase, whose sub-waves are denoted by numbers, and the three-wave corrective phase, whose sub-waves are denoted by letters.
What R.N. Elliott set out to describe using the Elliott Wave Principle was how the market actually behaves. There are a number of specific variations on the underlying theme, which Elliott meticulously described and illustrated. He also noted the important fact that each pattern has identifiable requirements as well as tendencies. From these observations, he was able to formulate numerous rules and guidelines for proper wave identification. A thorough knowledge of such details is necessary to understand what the markets can do, and at least as important, what it does not do.
You have only just begun to learn the power and complexity of the Elliott Wave Principle. So, don't let your Elliott wave education end here. Join Elliott Wave International's free Club EWI and access the Basic Tutorial: 10 lessons on The Elliott Wave Principle and learn how to use this valuable tool in your own trading and investing.

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