MarketWatch: If you think things are bad now...

June 17, 2010, 2:02 a.m. EDT ·

Elliot Wave predicts triple-digit Dow in 2016
Commentary: If you think things are bad now...

By Peter Brimelow , MarketWatch


NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- An investment letter that called the Crash of 2008 said that this would be a bad year -- and it now says it will get worse.

A whole generation of investors think that Robert Prechter and his Elliott Wave Theory letters, Elliott Wave Financial Forecasts and Elliott Wave Theorist, are permabears. And they've certainly seemed that way for the last decade -- although it should be noted that the stock market is now roughly back where it started. ( See April 26, 2002 column. )

But Prechter was very bullish after the 1974 low and, briefly, after being one of the very few services to make money in 2008. Then he announced that "2010 is the year when the bear market in stocks returns in full force." ( See Jan. 22 column. )

Elliott Wave Financial Forecasts (EWFF) makes recommendations specific enough to be tracked by the Hulbert Financial Digest. (The Elliott Wave Theorist is too, well, theoretical.)

Over the year to date, EWFF is up just 0.4% by Hulbert Financial Digest count through May vs. negative 0.3% for the dividend-reinvested Wilshire 5000 Total Stock Market Index.

Over the past 12 months, its bearishness did cause it to gain just 4.75% compared to 22.89% for the total return Wilshire 5000. But over the past three years, the letter's bearishness paid off handsomely. It's up an annualized 5.25% against negative 8.12% annualized for the total return Wilshire 5000.

And even over the past 10 years, so badly damaged have stocks been that the letter was up an annualized 1.05%, outperforming a mere 0.22% annualized gain for the Wilshire 5000.

The EWFF issue published in early May said flatly: "The topping process is over for the countertrend rally that started in the first quarter of 2009. The next leg lower that commenced in April should now deliver a decline that will ultimately be bigger than the 2007-2009 sell-off. ... Gold poked to a new high, but in doing so, likely completed a pattern in mid-May that will lead to a multi-month selloff. ... The U.S. dollar index is fulfilling EWFF's forecast for a strong advance." ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/elliot-wave-predicts-triple-digit-dow-2010-06-17

"Service Economies" are BUNK..If people are paid to "service" each other, it only works while most people have expendable income to BUY those services. As people lose jobs or their jobs do not keep pace, they use fewer services.

People forget that the DOW did not even hit 1000 until http://ww.scribd.com/doc/26276296/Dow-1000-is-Not-a-Silly-Number">1973, and that until Reagan came along & dismantled unions & pensions, usually only wealthy people invested, and they did so carefully & conservatively.

"The Recovery" and the impenetrable illusion of such is the only allowable and accepted thought process on DU at this time.

Please try your Call Again Later. :)