ElliottWaveTrader offers a live Trading Room of market analysis led by Avi Gilburt and our team of analysts, including Avi Gilburt, Lyn Alden, Carolyn Boroden, Zac Mannes, Garrett Patten, Mike Golembesky, Arkady Yakhnis, Ryan Wilday, Ricky Wen, Princely Mathew, Luke Miller, Leo Valencia, Dr. Cari Bourette, Victor Nguyen, Larry White, Jason Appel, Levi, Will Barton, Rida Morwa, Ganesh Raman, Leon Podolsky, Tammy Marshall, Shannon Fitch, Mark Malinowski and Jerry McCullum
Members can select from a range of our services in our Trading Room, including:
At any time during the 15-day trial, you can add your billing information for one or any combination of the services, which then provides you with posting privileges in the Trading Room.
When newcomers first login to the site, they are greeted by a welcome pop-up message from our "EWT Concierge" Tom, who can assist you during your trial and first month. Please feel free to direct message him via the pop-up Chat button at the bottom right of the page to ask any questions.
Newcomers to the site are also encouraged to attend our Beginners Circle Weekly Webinar each Wednesday at 5 pm Eastern, which covers where to find and how to interpret analysis of your interest on the site.
Please also spend time in our Education section featuring articles, videos, suggested books, and a glossary of terminology on Elliott Wave. The glossary page also features a list of common abbreviations used in our Trading Room.
Other questions? Please feel free to contact us!
Dear Traders:
As you have recently signed onto ElliottWaveTrader, more likely than not, you are new to trading. And, if you are, this letter is for you. I apologize for the length of this email, but this is something that I and the rest of the team believe is very important. Not for us, but for you!
When you enter the trading room, you will undoubtedly be overcome by the activity, much of which you will not likely understand. Some even consider it information overload at times. Remember, on any given trading day, we have many posts about several equity U.S. markets (many even dealing with 3-5 minute moves), many World Markets, gold, silver, oil, the U.S. dollar, the Euro, Natural Gas, and dozens of stocks. Yes, there is no question this can be overwhelming to the novice.
Furthermore, there is a jargon used amongst traders, and even more esoteric jargon used amongst Elliotticians, which will be difficult for you to understand the day you walk in. So, don’t expect to be an “expert” in your first month or two.
Now, if you are like most people, you stumble upon a chart you “like,” and decide to do your first trade on your first day on the site. Forget that you really do not understand what is going on, but you just want in on the action, and to be a part of “the winning team.” And, nothing could be worse for you to do on your first day.
Well, I take that back. There is one thing worse – and that would be if you did your first trade and you made money. Often, winning on your first trade or two makes you feel invincible, but you are now on your way to becoming reckless. And, I have yet to meet a single trader who, upon starting out this way, hasn’t given back all of his or her profits from those first trades and then some.
Starting in this manner is not the recipe for a successful long-term career in this industry. In fact, there have been many studies of traders done throughout the years. The great majority of traders surveyed had a risk of ruin so high as to make eventual bankruptcy virtually inevitable. The traders with the shortest time frames (day traders) lost the most money and had the highest risk of ruin.
The question traders must ask themselves is if they have what it takes to be a trader, or to simply resign themselves to being an investor. And, in truth, there is nothing wrong with either one. BOTH SHOULD make money. The issue is learning who you are, your strengths and weaknesses, and which role suits you best. Until you understand yourself, you may be trying to fit your square peg into a round hole, and that is a sure fire way to lose money.
And, yes, it takes time to learn who you are as a trader. So, a main suggestion I always make is to paper trade until you learn which role suits you best. And, even then, when you have money on the line, be open to the fact that you may be wrong if you came to the decision while paper trading that you are a trader. When money is on the line, emotion often takes over. So, if you find yourself unable to control your emotions while trading, then trading is not for you. Learn it early enough so you aren’t forced to learn it by blowing up your account.
A long time ago, when I was first starting out, and not doing so well, someone in the business gave me some good advice: TRADE THE CHART, NOT THE MONEY. But, when someone has put a lot of money down on a single trade, the emotional attachment to that trade makes it very hard to trade the chart, since your primary concern is the money.
So, I have modified his advice somewhat: Trade the chart using appropriate risk management, so that you are not as worried about the money on any single trade. It is for this very reason we suggest that one does not use more than 3% of their trading capital for any single stock trade, and much less if it is an options trade. By sizing your positions appropriately, it makes it much easier to be less emotional about a trade, and to make the right decisions no matter if the decision is to stop out on a pattern that has broken support, or to take profits at a target.
Since I know you are new, and I do not want to inundate you with advice which is hard to remember on a daily basis, I am going to try to keep my advice to two things. The second piece of advice is that before you enter any trade, know your entry level, your stop out level and your target . . . and adhere to this trading plan no matter what happens.
There is an old adage that when you fail to plan, you plan to fail. So, before you enter any trade, you MUST have a trading plan. And, most importantly, you MUST adhere to that plan, and not fall into the “hope” that grips most new traders.
The inexperienced traders will sit in a position until it turns in their favor, if it ever does. Develop a plan BEFORE you enter into a trade, and stick to it. This is setting you up for what traders view as “cutting your losses short and letting your profits run.” Remember, it is not letting your losses run until they finally turn in your favor. The money can be better utilized in another opportunity to make money rather than lying dormant or continually losing.
HOPE AND BEING OVERLY AGGRESSIVE BLOWS UP MORE TRADING ACCOUNTS THAN ANYTHING ELSE.
In summary, my point in writing this letter to new traders is to have them focus on two main things. First, you need to take the time to attempt to learn what type of trader you are and the environment in which you now find yourself. You MUST be brutally honest in this self-assessment, or you will blow up your account. Second, you must adhere to strict risk management so that no one trade, or even 10 trades, can jeopardize your account. And, within this risk management process, you must size your trades appropriately and have a clearly defined plan to which you MUST adhere.
I am quite confident that if you follow these two rules at all times, you will likely be successful in making money in the investment world, no matter what HONEST conclusion you come to about yourself.
Avi Gilburt
Founder
ElliottWaveTrader.net
The purpose of our Trading Room is to foster cooperative analysis for optimizing trading and better understanding of the markets. Member Trading Room posts are not for commercial or promotional purposes. All room messages, including direct messages, are archived, and may be reviewed to ensure adherence to our Use Policy in our Terms & Conditions. Room and direct messages that are promotional or in any way attacking, insulting, or incendiary are NOT permitted. Neither are posts promoting one political point of view over another (see more detail). We request courtesy, and reserve the right to, for any reason and without notice, 1) edit or remove member content, 2) discontinue a member's posting and messaging privileges, and/or 3) suspend membership, including in such instances where we find it too onerous to adequately monitor and respond to a member's messages. To ignore another member's posts, please select "Ignore" when clicking on their name in the Trading Room. For more on the topic, please see Avi's post, "R-E-S-P-E-C-T." If you have any concerns about comments made in the room, or any feedback, please contact us.
The Emini S&P 500 (ES) futures provide virtually round-the-clock trading, providing the most complete wave count of the S&P 500 without gaps. If you want to have as much information as possible regarding all twists and turns within a wave count, the futures provide the only venue that allows you to see all the movements of the market so that you can appropriately count all the wave subdivision within the market.
The ES can be tracked at CME.com, where there is also a list of roll dates. Any brokerage account you have should provide you with quotes and charts as well – please simply contact your broker. The ES does approximate the SPX and SPY, but it’s not exactly the same. There is no conversion factor we know of – though the price gets closer as you get nearer to the strike date.
Avi doesn't give actual buy/sell recommendations, but his analysis provides for you the direction that the S&P 500, oil, gold/silver, and USD are headed, along with directional calls that subscribers use to trade these markets long and short. All his alerts – his intraday Wave Alerts, nightly Market Update, and weekend reports on the S&P 500, gold & silver, oil and the USD – can be found in the Services & Analysts dropdowns. Here are some examples of how his calls have translated into gains for subscribers.
Buy and sell alerts — and a trackable trade table — are provided in other services of ours – see About Our Services above.
You can see the latest wave counts by any of our analysts for any timeframe by going to the Markets dropdown and selecting the Market, the Analyst, and the Chart Timeframe, and checking the Charts Only box.
For a better understanding of Avi’s charts, we recommend trying his Live Video premium service.
Avi recommends the book, Elliott Wave Principle, by Frost & Prechter, available in our Member Library, and his Intro to Elliott Wave Webinar from October 5, 2011, as well as Elliott Wave Overview from September 15, 2012, and Elliot Wave Wading Pool from Feb 6, 2013 in our Webinar section. We also suggest attending our weekly Beginners Circle Webinar.
In Elliott Wave analysis, it’s critical to distinguish whether we are in a 3 or 5 wave pattern. Here, Fibonacci calculations of extensions and retracements, based upon Phi (The Golden Ratio), are essential. A standard Wave 1 will extend to the .382 or .618 extension of the entire move. It then pulls back in a Wave 2, generally to the .500 or .618 retracement level of the Wave 1. It is then followed by a 3rd wave that subdivides, and this is where an Elliottician makes the distinction between an impulsive 5-wave move or a 3-wave corrective move. This is something Avi lovingly calls Fibonacci Pinball. Ultimately, the way that we know that a movement within the market is going to be a 5-wave move as opposed to a 3-wave move happens during the potential Wave 3. For a more detailed explanation of Elliott Wave Theory, Phi, and Fibonacci Pinball please see our section Elliott Wave Theory and Avi’s detailed article The Basics of Fibonacci Pinball. Also see Garrett's slideshow on Fib Pinball.
Often, when there are divergent opinions among the analysts on our site, the divergence is regarding the potential path within a corrective count. Rarely do our analysts significantly disagree on the larger count, especially if the larger degree pattern is impulsive.
For example, in early January 2015, all our analysts expected the market would likely be finding a bottom over the next month or so, and be heading to much higher highs in 2015. However, they disagreed on the path or size of the corrective action.
That is simply a factor of corrective action. Since it is the most variable of all forms of wave structures, it leads to a certain amount of "guesswork" regarding the path it will take. Once a correction begins, until at least 50% of the corrective action is in place, you really cannot begin to come up with high probability patterns to view as a highly likely scenario for CORRECTIVE action.
Once we get a little more of the pattern in place then it becomes a lot easier to differentiate between the potentials, and you will see previously divergent analysis converge.
Early on in our site we made the decision not to require our analysts to have their wave counts comport with a "house count" – as is the case with another Elliott Wave site on the net. That can sometimes mean divergent opinions between the analysts, and it may cause confusion at times — which usually occurs during corrective action, as mentioned above. But, after considering the matter exhaustively, we believe the benefits outweigh the potential short-term confusion it may cause to some.
We believe we have some of the best and talented Elliottician’s on the planet here at EWT. When you have such talented analysts, why would you not want to hear what they REALLY think? Yes, it can cause some short term confusion, but the fact that there is divergence among such talented people, even in the short term, is a strong indication of the short-term lack of clarity being presented by the market. This way, when they do agree, the chances of a successful trade are that much greater.
Avi focuses the majority of his analysis on the U.S. indices, precious metals, oil and the USD.
For individual stock analysis, we recommend our Stock Waves Service, led by Zac Mannes and Garrett Patten, and where members as well can also share their own analysis of stocks.
Avi tries to keep positions to under 5% of total capital. 2-3% is usually ideal. If you use proper risk management with managing position sizes and using stops, you should not be able to blow up your account, even if you are wrong 50% of the time!! If you are going to designate 5% of your total capital for a trade, and choose to use options instead of the stock, you should probably use no more than 10% of the total 5% you would have bought the stock with. It is in order to make the assumption you lose 100% of that option cost, so your total loss is only 10% of the 5% you would have designated for that trade. Please also see the Webinar "Members Perspectives in Trading Elliott Wave Cycles" from April 18, 2012 for more input on position sizing.
Since this is a technical analysis site, we do not engage in any fundamental analysis, and we would appreciate it if you would not post any fundamentally based analysis on the Trading Room discussion board.
Please refrain from posting verbatim any member-only content from other services or from requesting our analysts to provide opinion or insight on analysis from other services. You're welcome to paraphrase or quote short passages as long as you cite the reference.
You can select the type of sound and volume level when there are new posts and when you receive direct messages by visiting Room Notifications in our Settings section.
There you can also create Custom Audio Settings to play a particular sound when there's a post related to a specific keyword or set of keywords, and/or by a specific user or group of users, along with other potential filters.
1) See My Account at top right of the room and select Settings/Billing.
2) On the Settings page, click on the Your Profile link.
3) Select the Avatar/Bio
tab.
4) Choose a predefined Avatar or upload an image of your own
5) Click the Update Your Settings button.
Bookmarking a post (by clicking on the bookmark icon at the bottom right of each post) bookmarks it on your Bookmarks page and also allows you to be alerted in the Message Center atop the room when someone replies to that thread. You can un-bookmark a post by clicking on the bookmark icon again, and you can view the number of bookmarks of the post by right clicking on the bookmark. You can change your Unread Reply alerts in Notifications. You can find the most bookmarked posts in the room for the last day, week, month and since inception under Bookmarks in the Filters dropdown.
In the Trading Room, click on the inline chart to open the chart in a pop-up window. At the bottom of the chart you'll find an icon of a chart split between a black and a white background. Click on that icon to change the background color of the chart from black to white or vice versa.
See Earnings Calls under Stock Waves in the Services dropdown to see all of Zac’s and Garrett's analysis on stocks set to report in the coming days. (Available only to Stock Waves Subscribers)
1) See My Account at top right of the room and select Settings/Billing.
2) On the Settings page, click on the Notifications
link, and the Email/SMS tab copy will appear.
3) Select from the dropdown. If you have a second email and cell phone in the
profile, then the options for Alt Email and SMS
will appear.
4) Click the Update Your Notifications button.
Are you receiving an unmanageable amount of "unread replies" notifications at the top of the Trading Room? Try customizing your Room Notification settings. One thing we recommend is unchecking the box that reads: "Get notified when someone posts within a thread you have posted in." This is particularly helpful if you're posting within very long threads.
FAQs are on the Getting Started page.
Glossary is in our Education section..
Ignoring a user hides their posts and prevents them from direct messaging you. To do so:
1) Click on the user’s name in the header of the post, and then click on the circle with a slash through it
or
2) Click on the 3 dots at the bottom of the post and select Ignore
or
3) Click on the mail icon (top right) and type a user’s name in the search box.
Then select
the "person" icon to view their profile page, and click on Ignore User
beneath the user bio.
To view your list of Ignored Users and "unignore" someone, visit the Security & Privacy section of Settings/Billing.
When in Desktop View on a mobile device, there's a telephone icon in the right column footer of the Trading Room. Click on that icon to switch back to Mobile View.
Your Profile page is a link under My Account (top right). You can edit your profile under Settings/Billing => Your Profile.
If you see a post that is particularly concerning, please click on the icon of 3 dots at the bottom right of the post. There you’ll see a dropdown with options, one of which is to "Report Post".
You can search content in the room by symbol, keyword or user in the basic search box (top of room), or you can click on Advanced Search and add a combination of search parameters. You can also find shortcuts to content by specific analyst (in the Analyst menu atop the page), by specific chart (in the Current Wave menu) or by specific subject area (in the Markets menu).
If interested, for example, in metals, highlight Markets in the top menu of the room and then select Metals from the dropdown menu. This will filter the Trading Room for only metals- and mining-related posts. If you're looking for metals posts by a specific analyst, member or group of analysts or members, then on the Metals page click on "Change Search" (under the Metals headline). This will take you to an Advanced Search page where the keywords are already filled in, and all you need to do is add whatever Users you'd like to refine the search.
Once on your Search Results page, click Add to My Filters and you’ll be able to name and save the search as a 'My Filter'.
Anytime you want to get back to the full room, just click on "Room" at the top left of the page.
Tags are used by manually typing into the "Add Tags" box when making a new post or reply. Or you can click on the tag icon underneath an existing post and add a tag to your own or anyone else's posts.
Please note that as long as a keyword appears in the posted text, it does not have to be tagged to be found in the Search or Advanced Search.
In addition to providing a searchable keyword not already within the post, tags provide a way to easily categorize posts -- i.e., to classify chart durations or posts related to earnings or trade set-ups. When you click on the tag name, you go to a search page listing all posts with that keyword.
See a section in any of our videos you’d like to easily access at a later time? Click on the "Add tag for time" button, and the video will pause and allow you to add a symbol or keyword that links to that specific time in the video. Your link will be available to anyone viewing the video.
To keep a right-column thread open while also being able to watch and interact with the full Trading Room without losing that thread, simply click on the 3 dots below the post and then right-click on Copy a Link to Post in the dropdown. You'll see an option to open the link in a New Tab or New Window. This enables you to toggle back and forth between the main room and the particular thread without being logged out. You can also do this multiple times in order to have multiple threads open at once.
See our Education section for an archive of our articles, Webinars and suggested outside reading on Elliott Wave.
Or feel free to contact us!