Getting Started With ElliottWaveTrader

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.