Hello RS, Firstly I would laike to say that Porper pretty much summed up my thoughts to your posts. However a few of your comments I would like to respond to:
To miss the last 70-80% of the gold bull I wouldn't call a good record. Yes he maybe got the oversold bottom in 01, but he was only calling for a corrective bounce he didn't recognise that the trend of the last 20 years had changed, when it had bounced, he continued calling for $250 for years, refusing to admit he was wrong. He still thinks gold is in a bear mkt and has just been changing his labeling to validate his bearish beliefs. Its got the point of being ridiculous, and of course causing his followers to miss out on most of the gains, or worse still lose if they kept going short.
I am not sure whether your concerns are with Prechters abilities or EW analysis as such.
Gurus come and go in this business, an analyst can make 10 good calls in a row and be hailed a guru, but then can make to 2 bad ones and go out of favour very very quickly. What got me interested in Prechter was not his forecasting skills in Gold but rather his track record as trader. In 1984 he traded a live index options account in the US trading championship a contest lasting 4 months. Not only did he win the championship, he broke the record at the time with a 444% profit in that time frame. His trades were mainly based on EW and Prechter was the first to admit most of his trades were losers not winners. Do they need to be all winners to be succesfull? Absolutely not!! What EW enabled him to do was narrow down high probability trades. Not all of them worked, but the ones that did were quite stunning.
I have followed the mans work for a number of years now and with regard to Gold, he got it right on many more occasions than wrong. That included the peak in 1980 and all the subsequent moves in the ensuing bear market, when most other pundits were catching falling knives. Sure, of late he has been off the mark. I won't disgaree with you there, but most of the Gold perma bulls were calling for a low as early as the late 80's.
With regard to changing EW labels, that is simply part of the nature of trading as the dynamic of price change. Radge calls it Adaptive Analysis. All you can do is make the most informed decision that you can with the data that is available to you at the time. The core of my own approach is Cycle Analsysis, EW only makes up 1/3 of what I do and they both compliment each other.
I also agree EW can be amazingly accurate...The problem is most EWs all interpret different wave counts in real time, and secondly and more importantly, you must have the fundamentals right, and the fundamental direction right, then TA, EW etc help on timing. If technicals are your CORE belief, rather tahn fundamentals, 90% are doomed to failure.
Yes RS, EWavers interpret different patterns in real time. So do practioners of most other forms of T/A. But you know what? There is just as much subjectivess amongst fundementalists(probabaly much more)
Personally I think both fundementals and T/A have inherent flaws, but also which you decide to adopt really depends on the type of trading one is conducting. For me, T/A suits my style much more because I generally take short to medium term positions and I have found that my trading is inconsistant with the fundemental approach in these timeframes. At the same time I acknowledge that others have been able to use F/A succesfully over the short/medium terms timeframes.
Sorry but completely and utterly disgaree with you with regard to having fundementals right first. Yes there is a place for fundementals, but it ain't the fundementals or T/A IMO that drives the market, it's sentiment and social mood.
Explain this if you will, why has our equities market crashed over the last 6 months when all we hear is how robust the Aussie economy is and the fundementals are underpinning it's growth??
This is where our thinking differs, IMO fundementals lag the market not lead it.
Did you buy Gold in 2001, probably not because 90% of fundementalists back then thought Gold was a ancient relic with little commercial value. Precisely the time to be buying. Now the polar opposite is true.
Sorry that you think that 90% of technical traders are doomed to failure compared to using funnymentals, but this is just plain wrong. If anthyting just as many using F/A are doomed to failure as those using T/A. If you may have tried and failed does not mean that all others are in the same category as you.
It's not the approach that is the key, but rather the mindset. A probabilstic mindset together with the right Money Management is paramount, whichever style of analysis you chose to conduct.
My other question which wasn't answered, and goes for all posting, is your money where your views are? If so, say when and where you are short, and til when. I am fully long, and so if gold goes to the $600s, $700s or even low $800s, my portfolio is likely to be a bit bloodied. Its easy to sit at a computer and philosophise, but a bit meaningless if you are stating a clear opinion and there is no substance or money behind the views.
The answer to your question: SOMETIMES. I personally do not make public all my trades except to a few close trading friends (some from this forum).
But if you would like to see some of my own trades go to the "Your Latest T/A based trade" and "The Elliott Wave Analysis Thread" to name a few. Even on this thread if you care to go back 2 years ago and look at my posts, but I have lsited many trades all over this forum if you can be bothered reading all the posts. At present I have no positions in Gold but will make public my movements since you have interest. However by the same token we wish to know when you will be long and short as well.
Cheers