Sunday, February 7, 2016

Two head-and-shoulders patterns in play

One points down, one points way up (starting with a full retrace of January).  The tape obviously sits closer to the bearish one.

Each is plausible.  We're at one of those inflection points again.  Choose wisely.

SPX 02-07

By the way, if we were actually to thrust north and make new highs, the reaction off that move would be extremely severe and include a May crash that would make the old May 6 "flash crash" look like Canasta night down in Green Valley, AZ.

10 comments:

christiangustafson said...

I should note that I am a great fan of the game Canasta, and that some of my fondest boyhood memories are of playing endless games with my great-grandmother Bartuska.

She was born in 1893, one of the grand old Czech clans who are mere ghosts now in the ruined wastelands of Chicago.

christiangustafson said...

The Bohemian National Cemetery of Chicago has many of these ghosts today.

christiangustafson said...

You just gotta love that Chinese capitalism.

What a swell bunch.

Depriv said...

Hi,

The orange one is OK. It would be just a classic imluse down, and when it's done we could start wondering if it was a 'c' or a '1'.

The other one, however...
First: it's just technical, but the downward '1-2-3' would not fit for the blue/green version. It requires an 'ABC' here. Actually, it would fit, so this remark is just technical. Really.

The upward part is more difficult. There is just no way I would put that '1' as an '1'. It's just too symmetrical. It's more likely an abc, a corrective wave. That does not excludes more upward movement, it's just limits the available range of one such movement, so it's not likely to reach new highs - not in this go.

If it'll be about an upward thrust now, then I'll take that as a part of more sideways correction - a triangle, perhaps.

But simply a new low at this point has way higher probability.

christiangustafson said...

The green "1" up is indeed a 3-wave move, a triplet.

In order to make up a larger impulse wave like that, it would have to be part of an ending-diagonal -- all the legs are triplets.

The weekly SPX Bollinger is now rising, approaching 2160. We would have to push the daily BB way up, though, drag it like a rugby scrum.

Depriv said...

ED indeed would be a good terminal movement, but considering the owerlaps between 1-3-5 and the length of this '1' (except some really rare cases the first wave of the ED is the longest)...
Being 'sure' is a luxury for the really rich (and for the really poor) only, so I just 'think' that if this is an ED then it'll be a failed one, without new top.

Trading Sunset said...

Hmm, anything above 2K looks out of range, not least if you look at other world markets.

Next few weeks will likely confuse many, if we get stuck somewhere between 1950 and 1980.
-

Enjoy the Yellen this week... you've at least four hours of coverage to watch.

Anonymous said...

"Being 'sure' is a luxury for the really rich (and for the really poor) only" That's about the best thing I've read in a while, and I could not agree more. The very rich can afford to lose, and the very poor have nothing to lose. Make no mistake gentleman it's us that is the enemy of both groups, they want to plunder us for all we've got. I've said something similar for years, risk assessment doesn't apply to those at either extreme of the economic spectrum. Those of us somewhere in the middle have to think about it constantly, to avoid being ground up by this hideous machine.

christiangustafson said...

Everyone is chained to the mast, rich and poor.

When all efforts and avenues are finally exhausted, when faith in the system is finally exhausted, everyone will lose. Even PMs will be of questionable value in such a case.

Anonymous said...

There goes 1840. Should get interesting now, at least in the short term.