All the world is after a quick buck. But 95% of the quick buck winners are in debt in 5 years. The market is an intellectual test. When one consistently outperforms the market they have passed the test. Naturally, passing is not the best grade, but it does beat losing.
Your ABC count is still a possibility until the SPX makes new highs. Which is only about 2% away from todays close. The 5 waves down, from 2000, is not a possibility. It was clearly corrective.
I respect anybody that follows a discipline such as EW Theory, however I really believe it is a "Toilet Paper indicator", necessary afterwards, in this case after taking a nice DUMP!
Elliott waves are not total BS. It is difficult to develop a viable trading platform around elliott waves, but not impossible. Mt predictor is on the right track but not quite there yet. They isolate the waves so that it doesn't matter where you are in a wave sequence. You could be in a wave 3 or a wave c, but either way the stock will move in the right direction, it just may not move as far as you thought if it turns out to be a c instead of a 3. You could be in an ABC correction and you know the next move will be in line with the previous trend. I use mt predictor to manage the trades that I am already in. I let the program project the best areas to take profits. Mt predictor does not change its wave count. It either has a count or it doesn't. You can keep moving back in time until it finds a count and then go from there manually if you so choose. It's not a black box and people that use it as a black box will lose their shirt, but it is a very useful program based on EWT. I don't trade commodities, but there are many successful ewt traders in commodities. The higher the volume, the more successful they are.
Grail, For short term trading one only needs to identify what kind of wave the market is in...true. And the greater the volume, the clearer the waves...true again.
Lets face it,Dow Theory,Alan Andrews work and the Elliot wave are all predicated on some sort of wave theory.I think most of us are in agreement that the market moves in a wave like structure Some of the time.It would also be true that trend followers suscribe to this theory as well,since they make the bulk of their money on "impulse waves"..... One must logically ask why are the trend/breakout traders such as John Henry/Turtles generally well respected,yet the Ellioticians of the world are genearally viewd as one step up from a used car salesman?? The answer is quite simple. Trend followers who devote enormous analytical resources to making money know all to well that the large waves can come at any given time and thus one must always be in the market following a breakout/moving average X.Put simply,it is clear the markets do move in wave sequences,but it can not be predicted as to when and how far.... The Elliot wave clearly believes that markets move in impulse waves as well as corrective patterns which is not debatable.What is VERY debatable is the so called labeling ability of the waves and prediciting the extent of waves and turning points thru the fibbonacci sequence...It is at this very moment that Elliot wave loses all credibility as a viable trading vehicle.
I agree with everything you mentioned prior to the above. I believe in the total opposite. It has amazingly accurate predictablity of turning points(at least mt predictor does) If it weren't for this quality I would never use it at all.