When I first started out in the “trading” business I used to swap newsletters with Robert Prechter who writes the ‘Elliott Wave Theorist’.
I then managed to upset him, I believe by calling him a lucky monkey, and he then used the lucky monkey piece in his promo without giving me due credit which did not make me very happy either.
Anyway I decided to re-subscribe recently as I always enjoyed his work on socionomics and the tying in of popular music and film, among other things, to the mass psychology which, of course, also drives stock prices.
BUT Elliot Wave Theory is always so negative and here is an example which forms the first line of the September issue “Global markets and economies are mired in the early stages of the biggest disaster ever!”
The problem is that reading Elliot Wave Theory has always been an exercise in brainwashing yourself into a view of total gloom and despondency but the real world does not work that way.
Plus it does not help that he is most often wrong (hence the lucky monkey remark) starting with his buy signal the week before the 1987 Crash to his more recent comment (in August as I recall) that Gold is due a big fall due to deflation.
Elliot Wave Theory may be interesting, but I suspect I will stop reading it in the fairly near future.
By the way, I have just read that the gain on Apple between May 2011 and September 2012 accounted for the majority of the 16% gain on the NASDAQ 100 between those dates – ex-Apple the gain would have been only 5.4%!
The iPhone 5 was launched yesterday as “the biggest thing to happen to iPhone since iPhone” – not sure about that headline but it seems to tick all the boxes.
2. UK FTSE 100
FTSE closed yesterday at 5782 down 10 points with the spread betters now (03h00) quoting it at 5777 (-5). Triangular resistance, as discussed yesterday, is around 5850. We remain 50% short via the ETF SUK2. We are also 50% long the VIX via the ETF VIXS.
3. The German DAX
The DAX closed yesterday at 7343 up 33 points and yesterday’s high at 7410 hit triangular resistance – see chart below. The fall off that peak looks corrective so far. We are now 50% short of the DAX via the ETF ETFS Fund Company Plc DAX 2X Short Fund Shares EUR (GBP).