SPX Update: Bounce or Die

Last week, the market wrapped up its worst Thanksgiving week since 1932, losing almost 5%, as I opined would happen the week before. 

There's been no material change in the counts since Friday.  The bounce on Friday stayed within the crash channel, and as such did nothing to indicate a trend change, or even a slowing of the decline.   However, as I talked about on Friday, indicators have all reached oversold levels, and sentiment has reached high bearish levels.

One tendency I've observed in many traders over the years is to continue "looking" for things after they've already occurred.  Here's an example.  Back on Nov. 18, I wrote:

Assuming my preferred count is correct, market surprises going forward should be to the downside. In third waves, momentum indicators reach oversold and stay there. Bounces that should materialize, often don't.  

That has already happened, as indicators have been quite oversold for some time now, and expected bounces have been non-existent to this point.  But as I wrote this past Friday, now is the time when I'm finally starting to look for a bounce, because the charts are finally justifying it.

Besides the chart potential, another argument in favor of a bullish move occurring is the fact that everything's gotten so bearish.  Something has to give. The market is now like a rubber band that has been stretched to its limit: either it snaps back soon... or it breaks. 

But after Thursday's action, I tried to convey on Friday that a bounce definitely became something to be cautious of if you're holding short positions.  If we do see a bounce here, I expect it will simply be a snap-back rally, though it could retrace as high as 1220. 

Regardless of whether we get a rally here or not, I am ultimately expecting lower prices over the medium and long term, and my preferred view is that the market will make new lows beneath 1074 before generating a more significant rally.  As such, it is my preferred view that rallies going forward should be looked at as selling opportunities.

The charts continue to reflect the stretched rubber-band scenario, and this has made the short term quite challenging to decipher.  Sometimes, the short term potentials can be narrowed down to the same direction (or at least a higher probability of one over the other), but in this case, they're diametrically opposed -- one says dramatically lower, one says markedly higher.  In cases like this, I always think it best to let the market dictate.

The first chart examines what happens if the rubber band breaks.  I have drawn two channel lines on this first chart.  The black channel is the crash channel the market has been in for over a week, the red lines represent a larger linear regression channel. 

A break of the black line would be our first warning that a decent bounce may be in the cards, and a break of the red line would serve as further confirmation.  The technical invalidation (or knockout level) for this count occurs with any trade print above 1198.50.

I have also noted the position of RSI and MACD as something else to watch.  Breaks below the recent lows on those indicators would indicate that the decline is accelerating again.

The second chart (below) shows how the bounce scenario could play out.  This count is the same as shown on Friday, and views the recent decline as an extended fifth wave of blue 1 of red (iii).  An extended fifth would suggest a rally all the way back up to the red wave (2) of blue v high, near 1220.  I know everyone can do the math -- but that's 60 points up from here, which is another reason why caution is warranted for shorts.

And finally, I haven't shown a chart of the bullish alternate count in a week, so it's time to update it.  Interestingly, I haven't moved the blue target oval an inch since I originally created and posted this chart (pre-open) back on November 20.  The market has now moved perfectly into the target oval.  I continue to assign this count a low 15% probability, but this is certainly another reason for caution in short positions, since this count allows for 140 points, or more, upside -- and the market has entered the target zone, which means short positions become higher risk.

One of the reasons I continue to give this count low odds is the US Dollar chart.  The Dollar seems to indicate that there is more upside in store for Dollar bulls -- and it will be hard for equities to stage a meaningful rally in the face of a rising dollar.

We should continue to watch this count carefully, however, and if a bounce materializes, I will update this chart as needed.

In conclusion, the short-term picture remains as vague as it was on Friday, and the market will simply have to clarify things however it sees fit.  Long and medium term, I remain bearish.  Trade safe.

SPX Update: The Crash: 1; Seasonality: 0

As predicted, Wednesday's normally seasonally-bullish session turned into a big red candle.  That in itself should tell us something about this market, as that marks only the second time in ten years that the Wednesday before Thanksgiving has been negative.  The only other time that's happened in the previous nine years was in 2007, during the prior down leg of the Great Bear.

Now, that said, here's where things start to get interesting.  Despite the fact that price has performed  exactly as I've been predicting, my indicators are now giving some conflicting signals.  I'll come back to that in a moment, but first:  it's human nature to get complacent when things go perfectly according to plan, as they have for my readers.  However, the stock market is no place for complacency.  Please don't be tempted to get lazy here; I'd hate to see anyone give up their 100+ points of SPX profit at this point. 

The charts are now in a bit of flux.  One of the things that bothers me at the moment is that the SPX has not shown a clear internal third wave within the indicators.  This means one of two things:

Option 1)  The market has been forming a fifth wave extension, and could see a strong counter-trend bounce soon.

Option 2)  The decline hasn't yet seen the internal third wave.  This would have immediate and exceptionally high bearish implications.

The challenge I'm running into right now is ambiguity across markets, from currencies to equities.  If I had to make a call, I would continue to lean toward the more bearish short-term outcome, as I have for some time -- but the charts are almost a toss-up at the moment, more so than they have been previously.  Friday and Monday should hold the answer.

Long and medium term, I remain bearish.  My short-term stance is described above.  If the market can't generate a bounce from somewhere near the current levels, it is almost certainly in very deep trouble, and we should see strong acceleration in the decline... or an outright crash.

Incidentally, the Euro is in a similar position.  It needs to get back above 1.33, and then 1.35, pretty quick -- or 1.10-1.15 becomes fair game.

Let's look at the two possibilities for SPX in chart form.  The first chart depicts the fifth wave extension (option 1 above).  This chart suggests a short-term bottom is near, and predicts a decent retracement rally, which would likely carry all the way back up to 1215-1222 before the decline resumes.  This count flies in the face of my belief that we wouldn't see any significant rallies during this decline, but I have to stay true to the charts.

The second chart (option 2; chart below) depicts an ongoing nest of first and second waves.  This count is downright scary, and would suggest the bomb bay doors are about to open on this market. 

I would suggest paying attention to the black trend-channel for clues.  A clean break up and out of the channel would tend to favor the count shown above; a break below the channel would favor the count shown below (see how easy I made that?).  In either case, until the top trend line is broken, there is really nothing to suggest a trend change over the short term, and the first chart (shown above) remains a hypothetical.

Over the holiday, a number of readers inquired about the VIX, and how it seems to be unresponsive to the decline.  Using history as our guide, and given the market's position within the big picture waveform, this apprears to have happened the last time as well.  I have created a chart which shows 2008, the last time the market was in a similar position in regards to its wave structure. 

The wave we are currently in is believed to be black Wave 1-down of red Minor (3) down, which should make a new low in the SPX 1000-1050 range before bouncing in black Wave 2-up.  In the chart below, we can see that last time this happened, the VIX failed to make a new high, even as the SPX made a new low.

Of course, it is still not possible to rule out the short-term bullish alternate count, and will remain so until the market completes five waves down at higher degree. (See: SPX and NDX Update: Crash Wave Finally on Deck).  I continue to assign a 15% probability to this bullish count, but again, the market's in the area where that count could bottom, so I would suggest that some degree of caution is in order, as the bullish count would generate a rally back up over 1300. 

At the moment, we have a market that has left its short-term options open.  Friday is another "seasonally bullish" day, with data going back to 1941 indicating that the post-Thanksgiving Friday is green 70% of the time.  The Crash scored a touchdown on Wednesday, after Seasonality got flagged for too many false starts.  Can it score another tomorrow, or will the bulls regroup?  As Chris Berman would say, "That's why they play the games, folks!" 

The bottom line is the bulls need to get in the game, and fast, or the bears are going to run the length of the field on this one.  Trade safe.

The original article, and many more, can be found at http://PretzelCharts.blogspot.com 

SPX Update: The Crash vs. Seasonality: Round One

The traditional wisdom is that light-volume holiday sessions, such as the sessions approaching on Wednesday and Friday, are bullish.

Since 1941, Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) has seen an average rise of 0.28%, and a positive close 70% of the time.  Yesterday, I also mentioned that the day before Thanksgiving has been a green session in 8 of the prior 9 years.

There's a reason for this, and it has nothing to do with good holiday cheer.  The simple fact is, the big hedge funds and commercials recognize that they can't dump huge quantities of inventory into a thinly-traded market, because the retail investors (i.e.- the suckers) aren't doing enough buying to support it.  It would tank the market in a big way if there were heavy selling on these light volume days, which would mean they'd have to settle for even lower prices on their inventory on Monday.  Their reasoning is to let it go up, then sell into strength when there's more volume.

In the past nine years, the only year in which Pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday closed lower was 2007; which was not long after the start of the previous bear market. Tomorrow, we might get a tiny clue about just how desperate the big players are.  If the market sees higher selling than usual during tomorrow's "traditionally green" session, it could lead to a large red candle on the charts.

But really, any close lower will be a confirmation of the market's underlying weakness.  Thanksgiving week is historically one of the best weeks of the entire year for the markets; if it's a bad week this year, then that's relevant information. 

Another fun fact: the Monday following Thanksgiving has been a negative day in 7 of the 9 past years.  So even during the bull runs, the big players have been in distribution mode immediately after the light holiday sessions. 

If my preferred count is correct, we are now at the very beginning of Minor (3) down.  In Elliott Theory, each impulse wave is made up of five smaller waves, so more specifically, we are in wave 1-down of Minor (3) down.  And if my big picture count is correct, then this market is different than anything most of us have traded before.  Under that count, we are in the midst of a third wave decline at Supercycle degree (alternately, we are in the midst of a Grand Supercycle third wave down, which would be even more powerful).

This bear market is, in fact, an ongoing continuation of the 2007-2009 bear market; the entire rally from the March '09 lows was merely a large counter-trend correction, the B-Wave of the ongoing bear.  2007-09 was the A wave (a first wave), and this is the C-wave (a third wave). 

The challenge of trading third waves can be that they often don't let traders in or out safely. Think of the recent run-up off the October lows: that was a C-wave, which is as counter-trend third wave. It stubbornly refused to pull back long enough to let the shorts out, or let new longs in. Eventually, everyone who missed the turn just had to buy into the teeth of it, which drove it relentlessly higher with no significant pull-backs.  (The Horn Tooting Department wants me to mention that my readers didn't miss the rally, and were even warned about it well in advance, as shown in this article from October 4.) 

Anyway, to give you an idea of the difference between the power of a first and third wave, look at the chart below.  The question I keep asking myself is: should iii of (1) (prior waterfall) be more powerful than 1 of (3) (current waterfall)?

You'll also note the congestion zone of prior support.  Theoretically, this zone should now be overhead resistance.  Now, all that said, we are still not into the "meat" of Minor (3) down -- as you can see from the black "1" on the chart, we are only in the first sub-wave of Minor (3).

And all of this, of course, assumes my long term count is correct.  When this wave approaches bottom, I will again rigorously challenge my assumptions in that regard.  We lose the ability to navigate the market properly if we become too headstrong in our ideas of what "should" happen.

Thus far, the market continues to behave in accordance with my early November prediction of a waterfall decline.  I have continued to try to narrow down the very short-term possibilities, so far with a good level of success.  In a material sense, not much has really changed since yesterday.

Just to reiterate for new readers, my expecations are for this wave (wave 1-down of Minor (3) down) to carry the SPX into the 1000-1050 zone, although preliminary projections could stretch all the way down to the 800's.  I'll narrow that down when we get closer, but that's my preferred medium term view.

In the ongoing effort to try and uncover the path we might take to reach the medium term targets, the two very short term options I presented yesterday are still in effect today. 

The first (below) is the count I've been favoring over the short term since this leg of the decline began.  It's a bearish nest of 1's and 2's and indicates that the market has yet to see the strongest wave of the decline; it also suggests that significant rallies will be few and far between.  Under this count, the preliminary target for blue wave (iii) would be the 1150 area.

The blue (ii) can be knocked out if the SPX declines to 1175 or lower, then rallies back above the blue (ii) high.  If that happens, the count shown in the second chart becomes far more likely, and we may see a day or two of rally.

I am now favoring the count above at 58% odds, up a little from yesterday.  I would love to tell my readers exactly why I'm favoring this, but in order to do so, I would be forced to reveal my Proprietary Indicator of Potential Secrets (or PIPS for short --  I considered multiple letter combinations here, but then added in "Potential" to keep the acronym "family friendly").  Obviously, I can't reveal it, or else everyone would have one... and then I'd never be able to sell it to Goldman Sachs for so much money that I'll routinely be able to leave Cadillacs as tips.  But even PIPS isn't infallible, so a second short term possibility is outlined below.

The second possibility is the one being favored by most Elliott Wave analysts, since it's the safe and traditional way to look at things.  It's certainly possible for this to be playing out; and statistically, it would seem like one of these times I go out on a limb with my preferred view, I'm bound to be wrong.  This view has the market making a short-term bottom in the 1168-1175 area, then bouncing up toward the blue target box.  This would also fit the usual seasonality better, so maybe I'm an idiot to even suggest otherwise (and that thought has crossed my mind on a number of occasions). 

I'm giving this count 42% odds, so it's clearly possible, and there's certainly nothing definitive in the SPX chart to suggest it couldn't play out this way.

My preferred medium term view remains that Wave 1-down of Minor (3) down is now in process, however do remain aware of the bullish alternate count at this juncture.  We are now entering territory where that alternate count could conceivably form a bottom, if my preferred count is wrong.  I am keeping my odds at 15% for that count, as it simply doesn't fit well with everything I've been analyzing for the past month, but it's not impossible. 

The decline so far is three waves -- so from a technical standpoint, it could either be the preferred count as outlined, with the fourth and fifth wave still to come, or it could be an ABC correction for the bullish alternate.  Unfortunately, there's simply no way to know with complete certainty at this point.  This alternate would bottom soon and then rally up to new highs in the 1300's. 

As I said, I consider this bullish alternate to be highly unlikely -- but the market does have a mind of its own.  Trade safe.

The original article, and many more, can be found at http://PretzelCharts.blogspot.com

SPX Update: Will the Waterfall Crash Continue?

So far, the market has lived up to my prediction of a waterfall decline, and now everyone wants to know if it's going to continue.  Today we're going to take a look at a few things and try to answer that.

First of all, it helps to know what a waterfall looks like.  (By the way, I consider the terms "waterfall" and "crash" to be essentially synonymous, and use them interchangeably.)  The chart below compares the current waterfall with the prior waterfall decline, earlier this year:

We can see there were very similar top formations in both instances, and we can see that last time, there were bounces the whole way down.  And yes, I continue to favor a waterfall decline (or "crash" if you prefer) going forward. 

Note that the target for the top formation the market just completed, using classical technical analysis, is around 1150.  It would not be unreasonable to expect some sort of bounce from that level.

One of the things I like about the waterfall decline scenario is that the market action of "ratcheting" lower discourages shorts, and encourages longs.  The momentum never gets going down fast enough for the momentum traders to pile in, and it pauses just long enough to convince people the decline is ending.  This causes a max pain effect, which is what the market seems to enjoy doing to everyone.  Shorts either cover or don't enter, and longs keep buying and then getting creamed.

But make no mistake, under my preferred scenario, there will be lots of little bounces along the way.  The market never moves straight up or straight down.

Now that the market has provided another piece of the puzzle, I have been able to clean up the charts a bit.   Although my preferred count is bearish no matter how you slice it, of the various ways to count the current decline, I continue to favor the nested 1-2 count by a slim margin.  Call it 57.756% probability (I considered adding like 90 more digits to that -- be thankful I'm really tired!).  This count can be eliminated from contention if the SPX trades above the blue wave 2 high at 1223.51.

If this count is playing out, we could still see some rally today, but when it turns, the next leg down should show increasing momentum over yesterday's move; and the overnight futures sessions will likely create cash market gaps such as yesterday's.

The more conservative way to count the decline using Elliott Wave is presented below.  What I do like about this count is that it allows for the "seasonality" factor.  The Wednesday before Thanksgiving has been a positive market day in 8 of the 9 prior years.  Of course, none of those prior years featured the Congressional Stupor Committee, who, after months of heated negotiations, was finally able to tentatively agree on catering.  However, this is still subject to future review. 

Who knows what impact that may have on things; maybe that's why the nested 1-2 count has always looked more probable to me in the charts.  Anyway, the chart below is the "conservative" bearish count.  Under this count, it still looks like the market needs a lower low before we have a day or two of "happy rally time" before heading lower again.  The alternate black count considers the possibility that Happy Rally Time is already here.  Trade above 1211.36 rules out the preferred count; trade below yesterday's low rules out the alternate.

And of course, no discussion would be complete without mention of the short-term bullish alternate count.  If that count is playing out, change the blue and/or black "1" in the above chart to "C," and up we go, right on into the 1300's.  I continue to discount the probabilities of that count to about 15%.

In conclusion, my medium term target for the SPX is still 1000-1050; I'm just trying to pick nits over the short term.  Today looks like it could potentially see some continued rally early on (although that could be viewed as complete or nearly so), but I expect any rally will ultimately lead to lower prices.  Trade safe.

The original article, and many more, can be found at http://PretzelCharts.blogspot.com

Quick Silver Update (that's "quick silver" as in "fast metal," not the element mercury)

I did these silver charts over the weekend, but then got hung up trying to locate silver in its Primary count, as well as Cycle/Supercycle count.  The reason the larger degree of trend is important is because it could drastically change silver's outlook over the longer term.

Short term, I believe the target is the same under either count, so I figured I'd better post the charts for reference -- especially after glancing through my chartbook tonight and seeing the callout which says silver "may be ready to head down again almost immediately" -- which I wrote when I did the chart on Friday (?) night... and of course that's exactly what silver did on Monday.  Anyway, I'll come back to these and wrestle out the details regarding Primary degree waves and higher, but here's what I've got so far:

Keep in mind that silver's Primary degree count will impact this chart severely -- literally changing the bounce from one that reaches new highs, to one that reaches new lows.  So don't get too hung up on it until I figure out the larger trend degrees.  This all has larger impications that I think may be important to us, so it has become something of a project for me.  

SPX, NDX, XLE Updates: SPX 1000 Here We Come (Right Back Where We Started From)

I believe this initial crash wave could move a lot faster than most are expecting.

Before going further, let me first state that I continue to be quite bearish both long-term and short-term.  The question I'm trying to answer now is whether this wave will start off a bit "slow" from here and bounce around for a few days, or whether the markets will breakdown extremely quickly.  I believe this leg will turn into a waterfall decline at some point; I'm just trying to determine whether that point is "now" or not.

I'm really just splitting hairs, because the preliminary medium-term target is 1000-1050 (SPX) under my preferred count (possibly as low as 800), no matter how we get there.

But the short term wave structure leaves a bit to interpretation, so I have prepared two short term counts: one is simply very bearish, the other suggests a waterfall almost immediately.  I'll let readers decide which makes more sense to them.  After studying more charts than you can shake a stick at (believe me, I tried, and the stick wasn't having it), I'm favoring the waterfall short term count by a slim 55% margin.  I should stress that it's far from clear-cut, and I've gone back and forth on this half a dozen times.  This is one of those cases when another puzzle piece or two from the market would be really helpful.

Again, note that the larger count remains the same for both charts, this is just an attempt to nit-pick the tiniest waves.

The first count I'd like to present is the conservative count.  This is probably the one being favored by most technicians, because it has the market doing what "typical" markets do; namely, retesting the breakdown point.  I have used the S&P 500 to illustrate this count:

There are a couple issues I have with the blue "conservative" count.  The first is that the two corrections called out in the chart annotation are both sharp corrections; Elliott guidelines dictate that the corrections between second and fourth waves should alternate: from flat to sharp, or vice versa.  The fact that they are both sharps argues that they are both second waves.  Several markets are also suggesting that Friday was yet another second wave.  We may not even have seen an internal third wave on this leg yet; and if that's the case, the decline will be brutal. 

Assuming my preferred count is correct, the second issue is that this is not a "typical" market.  This is a nested third wave decline, within a much larger third wave decline.  Expected bounces will probably go MIA (turning into nothing more than sideways grinds) and oversold indicators will become severely stretched to the downside.  As my friend Lee Adler likes to say, "There's no such thing as support in a bear market."

The second chart shows the more aggressive count, using the Energy Sector ETF (symbol: XLE).  This is the resolution I'm favoring, but the next couple sessions should shed some light on which resolution is unfolding.  It's also possible that this sector may decline faster than the SPX, under either short term count.

One thing going against the aggressive immediate decline is Thanksgiving week.  The seasonality this week is traditionally quite bullish.

The one thing I'm uncertain of, in both cases, is whether the current corrective wave, which started on Thursday, is complete yet or not.  I suspect it is, in which case we may see a gap-down open on Monday -- but I'm genuinely not sure.  Any further upside on Monday is probably a gift to anyone who takes advantage of it.  If we did get some form of rally, I would expect the 1236 +/- zone to contain it.

I'd also like to share another chart which supports the big picture preferred count.  This is a weekly chart of the SPX, and uses two indicators to confirm the market's bearish position.  The top panel shows stocks which are trading above their 200 dma; the bottom panel shows weekly MACD.  The chart explains the rest:

The chart above references QE1/QE2 "Party Time," and shows where the Fed's printing press artificially supported the market.  Since QE3 has been a hot topic lately, I want to share another chart, this one from my friend Lee Adler at the Wall Street Examiner.  One of the many helpful pieces of info that Lee tracks is Fed cash flow to the Primary Dealers (among many other things; this chart is from his 89 page report).  I want to share this to emphasize just how much liquidity the Fed had to pump into the system to support the two-year rally off the March '09 lows.  It's somewhat shocking when seen graphically, and serves to underscore how little "fundamental" support the rally actually had. 

Below are Lee's comments (and chart) regarding current conditions:

Fed cash to Primary Dealers remains flat. The slow growth, or no growth, of cash injections via the Primary Dealer route is as opposed to during QE1 and QE2 when the Fed was adding massive amounts of liquidity by purchasing large amounts of various securities, mostly Treasuries, from the PDs. The MBS purchases will begin to settle within the next couple of weeks. That should give the line a minor uptilt, which based on current conditions should not be enough to keep stocks in an uptrend without a lot of help from other inputs.

We can see on the chart, the Fed had to pump massive amounts of liquidity to the market just to keep stocks afloat below the 2007 lows.  Without QE3, it's hard to imagine where the fuel for continued rallies could come from.

I'm going to make another prediction right now: I predict that when this current wave down is close to bottoming (in the 1000-1050 range -- although it could extend down towards 800), the Fed will announce QE3.  Here's my reasoning behind that prediction:

1.  There's a decent bounce near the bottom of this wave "baked in" to the chart equation; QE3 could fuel it.

2.  Oil and commodities will be "crashing" right alongside the indices, so inflation fears will die down fairly soon.

3.  In 2010, when they announced QE2, the Fed demonstrated that they have a pain threshold relative to the stock market -- and they showed us right where that level is.  The Fed's pain threshold equates to the SPX 1000 mark, give or take fifty cents.

So that's my prediction for QE3.  Remember: you heard it here first.  ;)

The last chart I'd like to share shows the Nasdaq 100 (NDX).  The  NDX just completed a major top formation.  On Thursday, the support level of this top was broken, and on Friday, the NDX spent all day unable to rally back above it.  The chart also has some helpful hints on how to "get rich quick" in a bear market -- assuming you have enough capital to move the market, that is.

The final chart I should mention is the short term bullish alternate count.  If you aren't familiar with it, the chart can be found in Friday's article.  I'm keeping this count at 15% odds, although I've considered dropping it to 10%.  In any case, I'm not going to waste any space posting the chart; it's pretty much the same as it was on Friday. 

In conclusion, as I've said for weeks, I continue to believe that October 27 was a major top, and the markets are now in the early beginnings of a waterfall decline to new lows.  Personally, I generally make it a rule not to counter-trend trade during nested third waves, unless I see an amazing setup.  It's going to get ugly soon (for bulls, anyway); trade safe. 

The original article, and many more, can be found at http://PretzelCharts.blogspot.com

SPX and NDX Update: Crash Wave Finally on Deck

The crash wave I've been expecting for a week appears to have finally begun.  The markets showed some strong downside in the last two sessions, and did what they needed to in order to fulfill the expectations of the crash count.

The triangle, which I always believed was a "fake," but I showed anyway at 15% probability (since I can always be wrong), was finally eliminated from contention on Thursday.  I strongly disliked that count from the beginning, and didn't even bother to draw a chart of it yesterday.  Like a houseguest that overstayed its welcome, I'm quite happy to see it go.

The smallest leg down may be complete, and we could see a bit of a rally on Friday to wrap up OpEx week. Despite the fact that ES futures (SPX) are up, when I look at the charts, I have the continued "gut feeling" that there may be some surprises in store on the downside. Nevertheless, I have labeled the charts conservatively, and a snap-back rally today may be in the cards. 

I continue to maintain, as I have for weeks, that October 27 marked a significant long-term top in the markets.  If my preferred count is correct, the stock market will probably not see these levels again for a long time.  I believe that the next leg (after the obligatory bounces) will take the S&P 500 (SPX) down into the 1000-1050 range.  From there, I would expect one last marginal bounce before the market crashes for real (e.g.- 2008).  The intermediate picture is roughly sketched into the chart below:

The next chart is somewhat important as forensic evidence.  It's the Nasdaq 100 (NDX) and allowed me to tweak the labeling of the smallest waves on the SPX chart.  Over the past week, I was somewhat bothered by the idea of too many sub-dividing first and second waves on the SPX chart.  I had an alternate count labeled (in black) on yesterday's chart, and I now believe that labeling was correct, however the expecation of that count was too optimistic.  Let's take a look at the NDX chart to see why:

 
Under the alternate SPX count, I was expecting a five-wave move up for wave (c) of (ii) which never materialized.  When a wave fails to meet its minimum expectations, this is called a "failure" or "truncation" under Elliott terminology.  In the NDX chart above, you can see that the NDX did form five waves up, however, even there, the wave fell well short of the target.  You can almost see how the wave is being "bent" downwards, which caused its expected targets to fail.  It's almost as if the wave were being bent by a strong current; this was a precursor of high selling pressure, and these types of upside failures are something we will almost certainly see more of during this third wave down.

Below is the adjusted SPX count.  I have moved the wave (ii) label to line up with the NDX.  This makes quite a bit more sense now, and explains the challenges I faced in interpreting some of the more recent price action.  The corrected count now reveals that we are only just beginning red wave (iii) down.  Note that we are now able to move the knockout level down to the red wave (ii) high.

The final chart is the "bullish alternate" count.  This count would be short-term bearish, long-term bearish, and bullish in-between.  This count allows for the possibility that we are in the process of forming an ABC correction off the October 27 high.  Based on the different markets I've studied recently, I would be shocked if anything short of central bank intervention could make this count a reality -- but stranger things have happened. 

I am only assigning this count a probability of 15%.  In the near future, we will be able to determine some key levels to watch for validation of this count.  Currently there is not much we can do other than be aware of the possibility.

Assuming my preferred count is correct, market surprises going forward should be to the downside.  In third waves, momentum indicators reach oversold and stay there.  Bounces that should materialize, often don't.  The SPX still has key support in the 1190 area, and as I've said in every update for weeks, I expect that is still the level to watch.  Once that is broken, there's very little support in close proximity beneath it, and the move down should accelerate.  Trade safe.

The original article, and many more, can be found at http://PretzelCharts.blogspot.com