Monday, May 4, 2009

Transports the train that could and did - facing a red light now?

What a day - the Dow Transports have indeed reached that ~3300 level associated with a pullback up to the .618 Fibonacci level I've mentioned from the monthly chart (see the last of the three charts below)! Many are no doubt thinking it should get to the 200 day moving average - after all, the Nasdaq 100 managed that feat, so perhaps it's viewed as a bullish divergence and the other indices should do the same. Perhaps, so let's be cautious. There might be a C=A symmetry either now or soon, depending on just how one marks out the rally. We knew the rally from under the monthly chart's .786 retrace would be significant, but the strength of the push up here and in the other indices has been remarkable. But, on the weekly chart, I marked a potential channel and we'll need to keep our eyes on it. The drop in the transports looks to me like a 5-wave movement. Whenever a 3-wave pullback finishes a counter-trend movement after a 5-wave movement, Elliott Wave analysts start to look for a resumption of the movement (in this case down). The only exceptions would be if the 5-wave movement finished an EW flat, or if I'm wrong and that wasn't a 5-wave movement downward on the monthly chart.

I didn't think I would be posting so much to day but there are a number of interesting things happening with the charts. Someone mentioned to me that there's a "phi" date coming up this week, so who knows. I'm in the camp that this doesn't seem like the time to be hopping on top of a trend that's already gone this long, in the teeth of potential channel lines like the ones on this chart of the transports and also the NDX (Nasdaq 100) as Andre Gratian showed for NDX this weekend. Volume has been falling off the last few days. Let's keep an eye on how the transports may react going into this area. At minimum this is a "yellow light" of caution. If it turns into a red light, then we want to be correctly positioned.



Update: I've added a set of Fibonacci retrace levels to mark how far the pullback up is retracing to the all-time high. Looks like the .382 would be at 3435, if the Transports "need" to get there. (So, already retraced .236 of the way back to the highs.) Also - let's remember that the Dow Transports are a key part of Dow Theory, which is one reason why I like to keep an eye on them (the other being that they do provide a good indicator of economic activity.) As I understand it, the transports would have to get above 3737 to trigger a significant event in Dow Theory. Not sure if that would be called a primary trend change or what the terminology would be (I look to Tim Wood of Cycles News & Views for that), but that will be a key level to watch. Also to keep an eye on, the .786 retrace to 3737 would be at 3394, and the .707 retrace was at 3267.


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