Читать книгу Supertiming: The Unique Elliott Wave System - Robert C. Beckman - Страница 19

During years of compilation of statistics relating to share price behaviour, Elliott noted that the “wild, senseless and apparently uncontrollable changes in share prices from year to year, month to month, day to day, and even hour to hour, linked themselves into a law-abiding rhythmic pattern of waves”. He claimed this pattern continually repeated itself over and over in sequence, ranging from the most minute hour to hour movements to massive market movements spanning many decades, as seen in the wave classification summary produced in the last chapter. By establishing the exact position of the current market’s movement within the major cyclical force one could therefore determine whether the general trend of the market was in the incipient, mature, or mid-way development stage of any particular trend, planning one’s investments accordingly. When discussing the Elliott Wave U.K. categorisation of the January 1975-March 1976 move, investors would have remained confident during the June-August decline of 1975 and the February-March decline of 1976, for only 3 impulse waves of that particular bull cycle had been completed. The mature stages of that particular movement would not occur until the fifth and final wave was reaching a terminal state. Thus investors could make their purchases with confidence during the aforementioned downswings which interrupted the cycle, and offered opportunities for the bargain hunters.

In many respects Elliott’s principles are totally compatible with the workings of Dow Theory. Both men recognised that long and short term swings are part of the same movement. That is, Elliott noted, the small swings are an integral part of a swing of the next higher degree which in turn forms a part of a swing of the next higher degree still, etc. We thus start with hourly movements and build-up to the Grand Super Cycle. We can also start regressively, with the Grand Super Cycle working downward to the hourly movements.

It was Dow who established the analogy of the ocean tide, the waves forming a subordinate part of the tide, and the ripples in the water subordinate to the waves, each rising and falling with rhythmic regularity (a) from their own direct cause and forming cross-currents, and (b) being ultimately governed by the overwhelming tidal force. Perhaps one can more readily understand the several different trends of share prices which act concurrently with each other, sometimes counter to one another, by considering this analogy. In essence, the shorter term price movements which we have referred to as “random noise”, basically caused by spontaneous occurrences, are the flotsam on the surface of the stock market ocean. Movements of this type, in two or three or more directions at once, and often opposing, are difficult to assimilate for many investors; but if we bear in mind the basic sub-division of three kinds of cycles, for the sake of simplicity – short, medium and long – and use the long to give us perspective from which to judge the short swings, and use the shorter swings to give us perspective from which to judge the longer swings, one can gain a greater proficiency in understanding stock market movements. Needless to say, comprehension or this simple phenomenon is mandatory if one is to understand the basis of the Wave Principle.

Elliott’s work supersedes the work of Dow in the precise classification of the various movements in a completed cycle. One of the most fascinating aspects of the Wave Principle was Elliott’s separation of larger corrective movements into the minor, minute, minuette and sub-minuette categories, all of which comprise a grand symmetry of share price movements which have been noted to be in effect since the 19th century in the U.S. and which can be observed dating back to the 17th century in the U.K. In these movements Elliott’s basic pattern repeats itself over and over again, beginning with the sub-minuette cycles, upward to the minuette cycles, then upward to the minute cycles, upward still to the minor and then intermediate, and so on until we reach the Grand Super Cycle spanning more than 70-100 years.