By Elliott Wave International

Patterns are everywhere. We see them in the ebb and flow of the tide, the petals of a flower, or the shape of a seashell. If we look closely, we can see patterns in almost everything around us. The price movements of financial markets are also patterned, and Elliott wave analysis gives you the tools to interpret those patterns.

The Fibonacci sequence is vital to Elliott wave analysis — as a matter of fact, R.N. Elliott wrote that the Fibonacci sequence provides the mathematical basis of the Wave Principle. Once you understand the Fibonacci sequence, it’s easy to apply it to the markets you trade.

The following excerpt is from a new eBook from Elliott Wave International Senior Tutorial Instructor Wayne Gorman: How You Can Use Fibonacci to Improve Your Trading. Wayne explains how the Fibonacci sequence is derived and how it can be used to understand market behavior.

Learn how you can download the entire 14-page eBook below.

The Golden Ratio and the Golden Spiral

Let’s start with a refresher on Fibonacci numbers. If we start at 0 and then go to the next whole integer number, which is 1, and add 0 to 1, that gives us the second 1. If we then take that number 1 and add it again to the previous number, which is of course 1, we have 1 plus 1 equals 2. If we add 2 to its previous number of 1, then 1 plus 2 gives us 3, and so on. 2 plus 3 gives us 5, and we can do this all the way to infinity. This series of numbers, and the way we arrive at these numbers, is called the Fibonacci sequence. We refer to a series of numbers derived this way as Fibonacci numbers.

We can go back to the beginning and divide one number by its adjacent number — so 1�1 is 1.0, 1�2 is .5, 2�3 is .667, and so on. If we keep doing that all the way to infinity, that ratio approaches the number .618. This is called the Golden Ratio, represented by the Greek letter phi (pronounced “fie”). It is an irrational number, which means that it cannot be represented by a fraction of whole integers. The inverse of .618 is 1.618. So, in other words, if we carry the series forward and take the inverse of each of these numbers, that ratio also approaches 1.618. The Golden Ratio, .618, is the only number that will also be equal to its inverse when added to 1. So, in other words, 1 plus .618 is 1.618, and the inverse of .618 is also 1.618.

This is a diagram of the Golden Spiral. The Golden Spiral is a type of logarithmic spiral that is made up of a number of Fibonacci relationships, or more specifically, a number of Golden Ratios. For example, if we take a specific arc and divide it by its diameter, that will also give us the Golden Ratio 1.618. We can take, for example, arc WY and divide it by its diameter of WY. That produces the multiple 1.618. Certain arcs are also related by the ratio of 1.618. If we take the arc XY and divide that by arc WX, we get 1.618. If we take radius 1 (r1), compare it with the next radius of an arc that�s at a 90� angle with r1, which is r2, and divide r2 by r1, we also get 1.618.

Fibonacci-Based Behavior in Financial Markets

We can visualize that the stock market or financial markets are actually spiraling outward in a sense. This is a diagram of the stock market whereby the top of each successive wave of higher degree (in terms of the Wave Principle) becomes the touch point of an exponential expansion or logarithmic spiral. We can actually visualize the market in this sense, and we will see later on, in terms of Fibonacci ratios and multiples, how this unfolds.

This is a diagram of the Elliott wave pattern. It is a typical diagram showing us the higher degree in Roman numerals with wave I up (motive) and wave II down (corrective). One of the connections to Fibonacci ratios and numbers is that with Elliott wave, if we look at how many waves there are within each wave, we end up with Fibonacci numbers.

Learn How You Can Use Fibonacci to Improve Your Trading If you’d like to learn more about Fibonacci and how to apply it to your trading strategy, download the entire 14-page free eBook, How You Can Use Fibonacci to Improve Your Trading. EWI Senior Tutorial Instructor Wayne Gorman explains: The Golden Spiral, the Golden Ratio, and the Golden Section How to use Fibonacci Ratios/Multiples in forecasting How to identify market targets and turning points in the markets you trade And more! See how easy it is to use Fibonacci in your trading. Download your free eBook today >>

By Elliott Wave International

In this video clip, taken from Robert Prechter’s interview with The Mind of Money, Prechter and host Douglass Lodmell discuss “real” money vs the FIAT money system, and what is backing your dollars under our current system. Enjoy this 4-minute clip and then watch Prechter’s full 45-minute interview here >>

Watch the full 45-minute interview FREE Get even more valuable insights as Mind of Money host Douglass Lodmell interviews Elliott Wave International’s President, Robert Prechter, about how to keep your money safe, the deflation versus inflation debate, and many more topics that are critical to your financial future. Start watching the free 45-minute interview now >>

By Elliott Wave International

It’s hard to believe that 2011 has passed so quickly and that 2012 will soon be here. Now is a good time to look back over the past year and assess your finances. Did your choices this year put you in better or worse circumstances? Do you have the information needed to make wise decisions in the next year? Are you prepared to protect your financial future?

The following excerpt from Conquer the Crash explains the importance of preparing and taking action now so that you’ll be ready for what’s ahead. You can read 8 more chapters from Conquer the Crash — 42 pages of critical information, including a list of imperative “dos and don’ts” — Free. Find out how below.

Chapter 14: Making Preparations and Taking Action

The ultimate effect of deflation is to reduce the supply of money and credit. Your goal is to make sure that it doesn’t reduce the supply of your money and credit. The ultimate effect of depression is financial ruin. Your goal is to make sure that it doesn’t ruin you.

Many investment advisors speak as if making money by investing is easy. It’s not. What’s easy is losing money, which is exactly what most investors do. They might make money for a while, but they lose eventually. Just keeping what you have over a lifetime of investing can be an achievement. That’s what this book is designed to help you do, in perhaps the single most difficult financial environment that exists.

Protecting your liquid wealth against a deflationary crash and depression is pretty easy once you know what to do. Protecting your other assets and ensuring your livelihood can be serious challenges. Knowing how to proceed used to be the most difficult part of your task because almost no one writes about the issue.

Preparing to Take the Right Actions
In a crash and depression, we will see stocks going down 90 percent and more, mutual funds collapsing, massive layoffs, high unemployment, corporate and municipal bankruptcies, bank and insurance company failures and ultimately financial and political crises. The average person, who has no inkling of the risks in the financial system, will be shocked that such things could happen, despite the fact that they have happened repeatedly throughout history.

Being unprepared will leave you vulnerable to a major disruption in your life. Being prepared will allow you to make exceptional profits both in the crash and in the ensuing recovery. For now, you should focus on making sure that you do not become a zombie-eyed victim of the depression.

The best news of all is that this depression should be relatively brief, though it will seem like an eternity while it is in force. The longest depression on record in the U.S. lasted three years and five months, from September 1929 to February 1933. The longest sustained stock market decline in U.S. history lasted seven years, from 1835 to 1842, and featured two depressions in close proximity. As the expected trend change is of one larger degree than those, it should be a commensurately large setback, but it should still be brief relative to the duration of the preceding advance.

Taking the Right Actions
Countless advisors have touted “stocks only,” “gold only,” “diversification,” a “balanced portfolio” and other end-all solutions to the problem of attending to your investments. These approaches are usually delusions. As I try to make clear in the following pages, no investment strategy will provide stability forever. You will have to be nimble enough to see major trends coming and make changes accordingly. What follows is a good guide, I think, but it is only a guide.

The main goal of investing in a crash environment is safety. When deflation looms, almost every investment category becomes associated with immense risks. Most investors have no idea of these risks and will think you are a fool for taking precautions.

Many readers will object to taking certain prudent actions because of the presumed cost. For example: “I can’t take a profit; I’ll have to pay taxes!” My reply is, if you don’t want to pay taxes, well, you’ll get your wish; your profit will turn into a loss, and you won’t have to pay any taxes. Or they say, “I can’t sell my stocks for cash; interest rates are only 2 percent!” My reply is, if you can’t abide a 2 percent annual gain, well, you’ll get your wish there, too; you’ll have a 30 percent annual loss instead. Others say, “I can’t cash out my retirement plan; there’s a penalty!” I reply, take your money out before there is none to get. Then there is the venerable, “I can’t sell now; I’d be taking a loss!” I say no, you are recovering some capital that you can put to better use. My advice always is, make the right move, and the costs will take care of themselves.

If you are preoccupied with pedestrian concerns or blithely going along with mainstream opinions, you need to wake up now, while there is still time, and actively take charge of your personal finances. First you must make your capital, your person and your family safe. Then you can explore options for making money during the crash and especially after it’s over.

As the subtitle implies, this book is designed as a guide for arranging your finances prior to any future deflationary depression, whether one occurs now, as I expect, or not. Although I want this book to have value beyond the present situation, some of the specifics of my suggestions are time-sensitive by nature. If you need to know today where you can find the few exceptionally sound banks, insurers and other essential service providers, if you want to locate the safest structures in the world for storing your wealth, whether in paper monetary instruments or physical assets such as precious metals, you will find the answers in these chapters. Yet over time, the best institutions and services today might be long gone, and others may have taken their place. For a few years at least, we will post free updates to this information at www.conquerthecrash.com/readerspage. But if you read this book 50 years from now, you may have to do your own research to fit the investment options and service providers available at the time. Nevertheless, the general nature of your goals should be much as outlined herein.

Most people do not have the foggiest idea how to prepare their investments for a deflationary crash and depression, so the techniques are almost like secrets today. The following chapters show you a few steps that will make your finances secure despite almost anything that such an environment can throw at them.

8 Chapters of Conquer the Crash — FREE! This free, 42-page report can help you prepare for your financial future. You’ll get valuable lessons on what to do with your pension plan, what to do if you run a business, how to handle calling in loans and paying off debt and so much more. Get Your FREE 8-Lesson “Conquer the Crash Collection” Now >>

By Elliott Wave International

As the news from Europe about bailouts and the euro’s viability changes by the hour, EWI’s European editor, Brian Whitmer, doesn’t see the uncertainty as a problem. In fact, he points out that when uncertainty blooms, you can really see that markets aren’t rational and that Elliott waves tend to become even clearer. He discusses the “uncertainty in Europe” in this excerpt from the November European Financial Forecast:

Markets Aren’t Rational
How many times did analysts blame the summer sell-off on “uncertainty in Europe”? But as stocks rallied over the past two months, notice that the European situation became more uncertain, not less, as the headlines in this chart attest. Who would have guessed that stocks could jump 30% amidst such uncertainty?

Likewise, the financial press uniformly attributed last Thursday’s [Oct. 27, 2011] 5% upward spike to reports that EU leaders had reached “broad agreement” on a path forward. But, here, too, uncertainty, not accord, prevailed that day. “Most details remain,” said an economic consultant quoted in the Financial Times. “We have a few more weeks of uncertainty to digest,” added a bank executive with Royal Bank of Canada. Much of what is needed “has not yet been finalized,” concluded the FT. The most important item of news that day was that Greece’s bondholders would take a 50% haircut. But even here, the plan was either short on details, under discussion, or otherwise unclear, according to news reports. As stocks fall again, the press will cite all these reasons and more to rationalize the decline.

Free Report The European Debt Crisis and Your Investments The European Debt Crisis is affecting investments across the globe. Elliott Wave International’s analysts have been anticipating and tracking the credit crisis across the European nations, alerting subscribers to the impact it could have on their investments. This free report offers commentary from February 2010 through November 2011 that will help you to better understand what could be in store in the coming months and years. Download your free report now.

By Elliott Wave International

What is the real problem with today’s market? Watch this excerpt from Robert Prechter’s special, video issue of the August 2011 Elliott Wave Theorist. Prechter shows you how the buildup of dollar-denominated debt has brought us to what he calls a critical market juncture.

Get even more information about current market trends and how to prepare for what’s ahead with our new 14-page investing report. See details below.

The Most Important Investment Report You’ll Read for 2012Every year or two Elliott Wave International (EWI) publishes analysis with a message so critical that they decide to share it, FREE.They have just released The Most Important Investment Report You’ll Read for 2012, a free report to help you navigate the markets and prepare for what’s ahead. You’ll get hard facts, 25 eye-opening charts and 14 pages of straightforward commentary that will put the volatile market action of the past months into perspective within the “big picture” to help you position for the years to come. Download your free report now.

By Elliott Wave International

Many people still talk about a “recovery,” or at worst only see a possible double-dip recession. But what if the mistake was to think the economy was only in a recession in the first place? It can’t “double-dip” when it never truly recovered:

“The respite following the 2009 stock market low is not a new expansion. It has failed to improve housing sales, barely caused employment to budge, and hasn’t managed — despite the unprecedented manufacture of new Fed money — to get the total supply of credit back above its 2008 high.”

Elliott Wave Theorist, Sept. 2011

Indeed, the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing measures have failed.

The Fed’s latest policy plan to stimulate the economy has been dubbed “Operation Twist.”

“On September 30, the Fed started operation twist, by which it will sell its holdings of short-term Treasuries and use the proceeds to buy longer-dated T-bonds. The goal is to foster more credit by lowering long-term borrowing costs. But last month [we] noted that low rates compound the money-making problem for banks by reducing margins. ‘Historical verification of this development is obvious from Japan,’ says a recent report from Hoisington Investment Management. ‘Normal bank lending functions are essentially shut down. This risk now confronts the U.S.’ The problem is not the cost of credit; it’s demand, which is waning. Lower rates will have little effect in helping foster enough expansion to allow the mountain of total credit-market debt built up over the last 70 years to be repaid, or even serviced.”

Elliott Wave Financial Forecast, November 2011

Imagine if the newspapers reported that Bernanke appeared before Congress and said this:

“‘This is the most serious financial crisis we’ve seen, at least since the 1930s, if not ever.’”

Bernanke did not say that, but his counterpart in Britain did. As reported by The Telegraph (Oct. 6), the comment came from Sir Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England.

The Fed is unable to stimulate the economy, the unemployment rate is not improving, and housing is in a “triple-dip” in some areas of the country. What does this mean for the markets and your investments in 2012? Elliott Wave International just released a free report to help you navigate the markets and prepare for what’s ahead. You’ll get hard facts, 25 eye-opening charts and 14 pages of straightforward commentary that will put the volatile market action of the past months into perspective within the “big picture” to help you position for the years to come. Download your free report now.

How to Find Correct Elliott Wave Patterns in Market Charts

(Note: This video was originally recorded on August 10, 2007)
In this timeless trading lesson on Elliott wave analysis, Elliott Wave International’s Senior Currency Analyst Jim Martens gives you an answer to a very important question: “If you’ve identified the wrong Elliott Wave pattern, how do you find the right one?”

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A few minutes of learning not enough? Get 32 pages of free practical lessons in EWI’s new Trader’s Classroom eBook. Taken from EWI’s Jeffrey Kennedy’s renowned Trader’s Classroom series, this FREE 32-page collection of actionable lessons can help you find opportunities in commodities and other markets with more confidence.