GE and how EW can fool you.

ge feb 10 2013

This chart ends with the end of 2012! What it shows is an elegant 5 wave down sequence from the $23 level. You have waited for this moment a long time and here is the first indication that a real bear leg has started since the $6 lows. The patterns are near perfect and everything looks like the stock is about to enter into wave 3 of 3 down, the best part usually if you are a bear. Then this happens;

ge feb 10 2013 2

If you had been long you could have bailed out with just a $0.25 loss. If you were short you are underwater. What happened? Well the correction was only 1/2 of a considerable more complex correction. Unless you have charts that give you every minute move (it is all in the B wave) it is simple not possible to tell. The moral of the story, in the present market at least, always assume that things will go further than you expect.

Here GE might be a nice short. The leg in the A-B-C counter-trend (?) correction looks complete. In any event there is only $0.25 to go to the upside and this count will be negated, so short at the market and stop at $23.10 for a potential gain of $3 plus or 15%.